The Joaquín Tusquets de Cabirol Photographic Archive
Set up in 2020, the year the negatives resurfaced. Our work is to order the holdings, study them, and bring them into public view.
How the negatives resurfaced
After the photographer's death in 1979, his work stayed in the family. For four decades almost no one outside the household saw it. In 2020 a box of negatives surfaced, kept in conditions that had preserved their physical quality. With it returned a body of work that the field — researchers, museums, the photographic profession — had not known existed.
An initial review made clear the scale and the level: a sustained personal project, technically careful, with particular concentration on the port of Barcelona during the postwar decades. The materials were placed at the Museu Marítim de Barcelona, and the archive was established.
Conservation, research, programme
Three lines of work. The technical conservation of the originals, alongside the institutions that hold them. The study of the holdings, with researchers. And the programme — exhibitions, publications, professional enquiries.
Online distribution is held back on purpose. The images here are low-resolution and few. High-resolution files, and any editorial, exhibition or academic use, are handled directly through the archive.
Museu Marítim de Barcelona
The Museu Marítim de Barcelona received the negatives recovered in 2020 and, in 2021, mounted the photographer's first public exhibition, Imágenes encontradas. La Barcelona marítima de posguerra. It is the reference institution for any research touching the port photographs.
Fundación Photographic Social Vision
Fundación Photographic Social Vision works on the research and the public programme around this body of work, within the wider history of twentieth-century Catalan documentary photography. With Fundación MAPFRE, it co-organises La forma elocuente (2026).
photographicsocialvision.org →
Fundación MAPFRE · KBr Barcelona Photo Center
In 2026, Fundación MAPFRE presents La forma elocuente at its KBr Barcelona Photo Center — the first substantial retrospective devoted to the photographer — in collaboration with Fundación Photographic Social Vision.
Frequently asked questions
Who was Joaquín Tusquets de Cabirol?
A Barcelona-born industrial chemist (1904–1979) who photographed in parallel with his working life. Over several decades he built a body of work centred on the port of Barcelona, the Catalan coast and the country inland. Most of it stayed out of view until 2020.
What does the archive hold?
It brings together his photographic work and coordinates the conservation, study and presentation of it. The original materials live at the institutions that house them; the archive coordinates between them.
Where are the original negatives kept?
At the Museu Marítim de Barcelona. Any consultation or reproduction request involving the originals is coordinated with the museum.
Which exhibitions have been devoted to the work?
Two so far. Imágenes encontradas. La Barcelona marítima de posguerra (Museu Marítim de Barcelona, 2021), the first public exhibition. Joaquín Tusquets de Cabirol. La forma elocuente (KBr Barcelona Photo Center · Fundación MAPFRE, 2026), the first substantial retrospective — curated by Marina Balagué and Arola Valls, in collaboration with Fundación Photographic Social Vision.
How do I request reproduction of an image?
Write to the archive. Tell us about the project, identify the image, and let us know where and how you plan to use it. For authorised uses, we supply high-resolution files with the correct credit line.
Where should research or press enquiries go?
General: archivo@joaquintusquetsdecabirol.com. Press: prensa@joaquintusquetsdecabirol.com. A press kit and a small selection of editorial images in low resolution are available on request.