cefvigo gallery

The Sarabia brothers come from the region of Trives, and their relationship with photography comes from their brother-in-law Xosé Gil.

Xosé Gil was a man who developed a great and varied activity. He set himself up as a photographer in Vigo in 1905, he was one of the founders of the magazine Vida Gallega in 1909, and he was a pioneer of Galician cinema, developing a great activity in this field.

Back from Cuba, Xosé Sarabia, born in 1870, worked in Xosé Gil's studio in Vigo until he died in 1907. Constantino, born in 1875 and a survivor of the war in Cuba, settled down in Vigo in 1907. He also came into contact with photography through Gil, setting up at 30 Elduayen Street in 1909. Here is where he and his brother Enrique, born in 1881, lived and worked.

The first references that we have of photographs published by the Sarabia brothers are in Vida Gallega in 1910. They would collaborate with this magazine until its disappearance in 1938. It is through these images that we have graphic documents of the first rides of the electric tram in Vigo in 1914 and of the expectation that it caused in the city; the arrival of fishing boats at O Berbés; places that nowadays have a totally different aspect, for example a horse carriage riding along Romil Street; social events such as the Flower Festival, banquets at the Pastora Palace or Saint Roque Festival, this one published on the cover of an issue of Vida Gallega of 1912.

In their photographs there is a recurrent theme: the trams which often appear in the centre of Vigo as well as in the outskirts of town, being these quite frequently the main element of the picture.

They record social events of the moment: the building of Rosalía theatre in 1924, the visit of the King and Queen in 1927, the multitudinous funeral of Sanjurjo Badía, the collapse of the transversal dock a few days after its opening in 1922, processions such as Corpus in Moaña, Cristo da Victoria in Vigo, or the performance of "txistularis" in a Basque festival celebrated in Vigo in 1927. Their work reflects also the intense activity of the port at that time. Fishing boats, sometimes merchant ships and even war ships are the background of many of their pictures.

Sarabia brothers' work was also published in other media. The first issue of El Pueblo Gallego of January 27th 1924 contains some pictures of theirs. El Faro de Vigo publishes their photos since September of that year. However, their works do not appear as frequently as those made by Pacheco, Ksado or Llanos. We can also find their photographs in books such as Pontevedra y su provincia, Artística e industrial published by Juan Barrera in 1921-22, and Libro de oro de la provincia de Pontevedra published by P.P.K.O. in 1931.

The work made outside the studio was not always meant to be published as graphic work, but it was in many cases a commercial order. Some of the most outstanding of this group are: the work on the canning industry and the one they did for Junta de oras del puerto. There are some marvellous photographs in Pontevedra Museum which show us the work of the women in the canning factories in the 20s, images hard to find in other archives. The work for Junta de Obras del Puerto is a document that reflects the construction and modifications that took place in Vigo port during the 20s and 30s. There are a number of general views that show us the radical changes undergone in the relationship between the city and the sea. Others show particular works, and the technique used at the time, dredgers, cranes, iron docks... A great part of this work is kept in the archives of Autoridad Portuaria de Vigo.

Constantino was the one who used to work outside the studio, while Enrique, a more talkative man, was in charge of the studio work. The studio did not have the prestige which at that time had Pacheco, Ksado or Gil's studios.

Enrique, the youngest of the two brothers, had died in 1959, and Constantino would die in 1966, after having spent his last years in solitude. It is rumoured in Vigo that, after his death, someone took part of his negatives from his house. Nobody knows what has become of Gil's photographic archive or of his films, whose latest owner, according to some people, was Constantino. iT might have undergone the same fate as Sarabia's archive. What Manuel de la Fuente wrote reflects the the thought of some people about this: "Their belongings passed into someone else's hands. These peole even had the cheek to make them appear as their own".