A multifaceted artist, Victor Palla (1922-2006) was an architect, graphic artist, photographer, painter, ceramicist, publisher, writer, translator and gallery owner. In September 1992, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation held an exhibition devoted to his photographic work, mostly showing photographs taken between 1950 and the 1980s. At the invitation of then CAM director José Sommer Ribeiro, the curating was entrusted to the photography theoretician Pedro Miguel Frade, who passed away unexpectedly before the exhibition opened.

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The preparation for the exhibition involved the reprinting of almost all of Victor Palla’s photographs by the renowned printer Yvon le Marlec, who had a studio in Paris, with some of the negatives undergoing restoration treatment. Around 50 photographs were displayed, taken between 1948 and 1991, most of them belonging to the CAM Collection. 

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The exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue with reproductions of the works and texts by Sommer Ribeiro, Pedro Miguel Frade and Teresa Siza, who was at the time director of the Centro Português de Fotografia. After closing in October 1992, the exhibition travelled to Évora, where it was presented to the public in December of the same year at the headquarters of Grupo Évora.

História das Coleções

On the digital catalogue you can explore the 1343 exhibitions held by the Foundation between 1957 and 2016.