Catany would have struggled to really have known the priest, but Monserrat would almost certainly have known him. Catany was born in 1942; the priest died in 1944. They were, to all intents and purposes, neighbours. The priest's house was in a different street (Convent) to that of the Catany family (Cardenal Rossell), but it was on the corner of the Cardenal Rossell. The Catany home was on the corner of Convent.
This proximity was doubtless an important factor in Catany having been influenced by Monserrat. It was an influence that was to take him to Barcelona, to Israel, to Egypt, to the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan. He was based in Barcelona from 1960, but he never forgot his home town and home island. Before he died in 2013, he had made provision for his legacy and that of Tomas Monserrat to be preserved: in Llucmajor, in the old houses where one had died and the other had been born. The project for this preservation has yet to be realised.
The American "Life" magazine once named Catany among its 100 greatest photographers in the world, and he was honoured by the governments of both the Balearics and Catalonia. His was a photography that was as diverse as it was original - portraits, landscapes, the surreal, nudes, still life (as in vases of flowers for example), journalistic. It was a photography that he wished to bequeath to Mallorca, and in October 2013, he had been due to fly from Barcelona to the island with plans for the photographic centre project. These plans had been packed into his suitcase. He never made the journey. He died of a heart attack.
These plans were, however, only the latest for a project that had been conceived some years earlier. In 2007, with the backing of the town hall in Llucmajor and of the Council of Mallorca, the process was set in motion for the creation of the Toni Catany Foundation. Three years later, the legal framework for this had been agreed to by the two authorities, the Council, in the meantime, having acquired both the house of Tomas Monserrat and the Catany family home. Catany himself would supply all his photographic legacy, which was to include cameras as well as photographs, negatives, you name it, plus work by other photographers.
The Council had been in receipt of 4.3 million euros, funds that had been supplied by Turespaña, the national agency for tourism, and channelled through the regional government. This was in 2009. By June 2013, not long before he died, Catany wrote to the Council. To say that he was disappointed was probably an understatement. Nothing had happened, yet the project had been officially announced and architects' plans (which can be viewed on the internet) had been drawn up.
In April of this year, executors of his will and therefore members of the foundation were baffled when they learned of a decision of the Council's to release a million euros for the redevelopment of Monserrat's house. They were baffled because no one at the Council had apparently been in contact with them. The trustees were not objecting to work being done, they were just alarmed by the fact that they were not being informed. The Council's view was that, as it was now the owner of the house, it would go ahead with the bidding process for the redevelopment.
At least, however, something finally seemed to be moving, but the tardiness that the Council of Mallorca has shown over something that is a statutory investment (backed by the money that had been forthcoming in 2009) is something that the left-wing parties which seem poised to take over at the Council will address: they have said that such investments in the island's culture, like the Catany foundation, will be fulfilled.
The point is that one of the key reasons for the existence of the Council is a responsibility for the island's culture. Economic crisis will of course be cited in mitigation, and Maria Salom, on becoming president in 2011, was faced with a Council with huge debts. But the funding was expressly made available. With any luck the vision of Toni Catany will now be realised in the not-too-distant future and his legacy will be there for all to see.
* As part of the PalmaPhoto season, there will be a documentary film about Catany at the Cineciutat, 25 June at 10pm.
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