Jean Marie del Moral

JEAN MARIE DEL MORAL (Montoire-sur-le-Loir, France, 1952).
"Miquel Barceló in Mali".
Black and white photography.
Measurements: 78 x 108 cm; 102 x 142 cm (frame).

The visits to Mali, which were a turning point for the young Miquel Barceló, can be considered as the starting point of his successful artistic career. In the African country Jean Marie del Moral was able to capture with his lens all the talent of the very young and still unknown Miquel Barceló. His attentive gaze accompanied the Mallorcan painter for 16 years, developing his work both in his studio and in different parts of the world between Europe and Africa, showing the projects developed in Mallorca, Barcelona, Mali, Palermo, Lanzarote and Paris. Del Moral's photographs, like Barceló's art, delight in the textures and materials, the plastic games and the dynamism of the compositions. In 1991 he directed the documentary "Les ateliers de Barceló".

Jean Marie del Moral has worked as a photographer since the age of 14. In 1973 he joined the staff of the French communist newspaper L'Humanité as a photographer. In 1974 he moved to Canada and the United States, where he discovered great photographers such as Paul Strand, Walker Evans, Irving Penn or Manuel Álvarez Bravo.
He worked as a photographer on the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games documentary film. His relationship with art began in 1976, when on his return to Europe he photographed Joan Miró for a film about Spanish intellectuals after Franco's death. Since then, he has photographed the workshops and creative processes of painters and sculptors from all over the world such as Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Motherwell, Antoni Tàpies, Antonio Saura, Julian Schnabel or ZaoWou-Ki, among others. He directed the documentaries Les ateliers de Barceló (1991) and Picasso y la tauromaquia (Picasso and bullfighting, 1993). In 2006 he was guest photographer in the project Cuenca en la mirada (Cuenca in the eyes). His successful career has led him to collaborate with some of the most important international magazines and publications: Vogue, Madame Figaro, El País Semanal, Matador and Travel and Leisure. His work has been exhibited at Les Rencontresd'Arles (1988) and in museums such as the Museu Da Cidade de Lisboa (2004). ), the Centro Conde Duque in Madrid (2004), the Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno (IVAM, 2004), the Fundación Antonio Pérez de Cuenca as part of PHotoEspaña 2007, and the Museo de Obras Gráficas San Clemente de Cuenca (2008), among others. His works are included in the collections of the Fundación Pérez (Cuenca), the Fundación Apeles Fenosa (El Vendrell), the IVAM, the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró a Mallorca and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (New York).