Manel Armengol
Manifestacions a Barcelona, 1976
Fábrica Cal Garbat
On 1 February 1976, before he was officially a photographer, the author captured images in Barcelona of the demonstration calling for amnesty for political prisoners – a collective attempt to escape repression and achieve freedom.
The images reached the foreign press and were published in international media, becoming one of the clearest testimonies to the end of Franco’s dictatorship. His career had begun in the early 1970s in the neighbourhoods of Badalona, where he provided photographs to accompany newspaper articles.
That day in February marked a turning point in his career and in his understanding of the craft: the camera as a tool for documenting a society seeking to break free from a repressive regime.
Manel Armengol i Cervera (Badalona, 1949) is a Catalan photographer specialising in photojournalism.
In 1976, he documented police repression during the Transition, with his images published in international media. He later turned his focus to architecture and nature.
A recipient of the National Photography Prize awarded by Flash-Fotografía magazine, Armengol worked as a special correspondent in countries such as China, Mexico, Burma, Peru, the United States and Algeria; his work forms part of collections such as that of the MNAC.
