cefvigo gallery

Until recent years, to speak about historic photography was to make a reference to Ksado. He was, without the slightest doubt, the Galician photographer whose work was more widely spread through Galiza, succeeding in making it be considered and appreciated.

Even today his album Estampas de Galicia can be found in lots of homes, although usually not complete.

Luis Casado was born in ävila in 1888. When he was six his father, a civil servant in the Ministry of Finance, was transferred to Ourense. When he was just ten, he began to work as an apprentice in Xosé Pacheco's studio. In 1915 Ksado opened his own studio in Rúa do Vilar in Santiago. Later, in 1922, he opened a new studio in Vigo. His sister Carmiña took charge of the studio in Compostela.

He develops a great amount of activities for the newspapers like Faro de Vigo, El Pueblo Gallego, El Nuevo Mundo, ABC, Ahora, La Esfera, Mundo Gráfico, La Vanguardia, Céltiga, Galicia, Vida Gallega... and Argentine publications like La Nación, La Prensa and Diario de la Marina.

During Primo de Rivera's dictatorship he published his book Estampas Compostelanas, devoted to the architecture and monuments of Santiago. But it will be Estampas de Galicia (1936) his fundamnetal book.

Estampas de Galicia was published as an album, a 10,000 copy edition, where people had to glue the 405 differently sized picture cards (from 6 x 9 to 12 x 17 cms.). You could exchange the vouchers you got in some shops for the picture cards. The book consists of a journey through our country presenting us with views of the towns, villages streets, monuments, landscapes, workung scenes in the harbours and rural scenes too. The conception of this book is perfectly reflected in its advertising lines: "to praise the panorama, historic, artistic, monumental, typical, legendary values of our land."

His relationship with intellectuals, artists and institutions of Galician tendency such as "Seminario de Estudos Galegos", led him to take part in the fertile movement that at the time was trying to establish the identity signs of the country, and it is from that point of view from which Estampas and its approach to historic monuments or rural life must be analized. Those were years when great attention was paid to the Celtic mithology in search of an explanation of differentiating elements of our collective identity. This should be related to the importance that, in terms of art, was given to the Primitivism at that time.

Some of his images are greatly similar to some by Asorey, for example A picariña and A naiciña (for him the archetype of the Celtic woman). However, the hieratical figures in Ksado's photographs are due not only to aesthetic reasons like in Asorey's sculptures, but to technical ones, and to the concept of classical photography of the time.

His concept of photography was the classical one established in the 19th century, a far cry from the avant-garde movement taking place in Europe in those years. Except from some photographs, most of his work looks static and with a clear previous set. Ksado managed to get his work considered in a different way to the work of the other photographers, he was considered a real artist. Although at the time there were few photographic exhibitions, Ksado's work was shown in Ponferrada, Betanzos, Vigo, Buenos Aires, and in Madrid at the Palacio de Cristal and Centro Gallego. The Galician Photographic Association appointed him as president of their section in Santiago in a homage paid to him in 1961. In 1936, because of the fascist revolt, this interesting and prolific publishing activity was interrupted.

In 1937 Ksado shut down his studio in Vigo and wentback to Santiago where he resumed a professional activity similar to the other studios, giving up his previous work. In 1948, Holy Year in Santiago, his work Estampas Compostelanas was reprinted.