Belita Gracia, photographer, transgressive and centenarian

Isabel Gracia, Belita, loves León. The city he left behind more than half a century ago “has made a lot of progress. There is a lot of intellectuality and I think it is a city with a future and a future,” she says by phone from her house in Barcelona, ​​the morning of her birthday, June 6. A memorable date, for its centenary and for coinciding with the anniversary – 80 years – of the Normandy landings.

Both events merged into a party full of “good rock & roll”, with music served by ‘Olaf and the drums’, and the memory of those heroic soldiers in the period and authentic uniforms that some of the guests wore. .

Belita was 20 years old when the allied army landed on the French coast, marking the beginning of the end of a bloody war in Europe. More or less the same age seen in the smiling face in the photo of her anniversary cake with the legend “Belita turns 100.”

The third of the four children of Pepe Gracia and Isabel López was already busy with the liquids from her father’s photographic laboratory, located on Ancha Street, above the Victoria café. Like her older brother, Pipo, and her sisters, Rosa and Ninfa, all collaborated with her father in the study. It was a family tradition.

Pepe Gracia had learned the trade from his father, Germán Gracia, a Valencian painter and photographer who settled in León around 1880 due to a snowfall. He was trapped in the city, on his way to Asturias with the Mazantini gang, and for a love, when he fell in love with Ninfa, who would become his wife and Pepe’s mother. The legend of the Gracia has overshadowed the role of the Graces.

The mark of this Leonese in photography is the result of that inherited passion, of learning between the vats of her father’s laboratory and the Kodak Retina camera that she debuted in 1955 and now uses, from time to time, by her son Olaf Pla Gracia.

«Photography gave me life. I saw my father work. “He taught me to see painting and art with love,” emphasizes this woman who reaches one hundred years old “fun and happy” and eager to “live a little longer” to continue enjoying her city.

Belita Gracia did not dedicate herself to photography professionally but she has portrayed both her hometown and epic moments in Barcelona such as the early years of rock & roll. She and her son Olaf moved to this city in 1973, following in the footsteps of Manuel Pla, husband and father, who exchanged the hard work of a veterinarian in León for a more promising position in a laboratory in the Catalan capital.

The photos of Carlos Segarra, from Los Rebeldes, in his mother’s hamburger restaurant in Barcelona or those of the many concerts that Belita attended with her son at that time are part of an unknown and committed work.

“I adore León and the mountains of León…”, he says with homesickness, reciting Rosalía de Castro’s verses – “Goodbye rivers, goodbye mountains,, Goodbye small streams” – although it has only been a month since he last set foot in his hometown. . “My mother was Galician and I’m homesick for my León,” she explains.

The river is one of her favorite places and she doesn’t want to mention other “many beautiful places so they don’t spoil them like Everest.” Belita Gracia, since she was one hundred years old, has a young spirit fully aligned with the values ​​of the 21st century such as care of the environment or the defense of women’s rights.

And it’s not that they are recent concerns. In the 80s, Belita developed a series of photographic collages that included her concern for women victims of gender violence, when this name did not yet exist to name what was known as abuse and it remained in the private sphere within the four walls. where the crimes were committed.

Belita Gracia says that she thought about making the collage because “I heard a neighbor hitting his wife.” A naked woman suspended over a barbed wire fence and around which some pigeons fluttered, was her cry, on a red background, to denounce this reality. “I also saw another man hit his dog,” she adds, explaining the realities that prompted this handmade series with a laborious cut and paste that is surprising in the digital age.

Another feat in the history of music in León accounts for his rock spirit. She is responsible for the only recording that exists of the group Chusma, a short-lived group from León that she invited to play at her house and recorded after a concert in the capital. Olaf says that in León’s house parties were held to the rhythm of Los Brincos and the music of Los Cridens was heard.

Reaching one hundred years old has no secret. His formula is the following: «Be good and just and love people; I believe in people and in sharing life,” he emphasizes. His long life has not diminished his lucidity, although his mobility is reduced and he would like to speak with the same ease as before. This is said by a woman who traveled by motorcycle with her husband from Ribadeo to Valencia when there was almost no traffic on the roads..

About Belita’s life and her photographic work and the saga of the Gracias, Ana Valiño is preparing a documentary with the support of the Leonés Institute of Culture. One of the things that has fascinated him most about Belita is her desire to “seek beauty in everything.”

The hundred years of Belita Gracia will be captured in this new audiovisual that focuses on the women of a saga of four generations in photography in León. «Everything stems from a feeling that there was an invisibility of women related to the world of photography in the history of León. “I couldn’t believe that there weren’t women, a mother, a sister or a daughter who at some point had picked up the camera,” explains Ana Valiño when talking about her project.

An intuition surely fueled by personal experiences. “My grandfather’s sister, who worked in a photography studio, was the one who revealed everything.” When he heard from Belita he felt that he was the perfect character to rescue her as a reference and starting point for the contribution of women to photography in León. “She has turned one hundred years old and I think she has not been given the relevance that her photographs have,” she adds.

For the young photographer from León, “Belita is a very transgressive woman, speaking about issues related to women and violence against women, and very ahead of her time.” The series at hand aims to do justice to women like Belita Gracia, while understanding “the obstacles they faced and how they defended their freedom when creating, fighting, traveling, photographing and relating to rock music.” Barcelona”.

The documentary wants to rescue the contribution of the other two Gracias, Ninfa and Rosa, and Isabel López, the mother, wife and essential companion of Pepe Gracia’s photography studio. Ninfa, 99 years old, was “a great retoucher” and she taught this art in the days when Photoshop or digital retouching that everyone now uses did not exist. Isabel, in addition to working in the laboratory, helped with composition and was a great public relations person. The photos of her wearing a top hat and lighting a tipped cigarette or suggesting a bare torso reveal another transgressive spirit.

The fascinating saga of the Gracias has already inspired another documentary. Ana Valiño wants to do her part to tell the complete story by rescuing the women of a family who have built the graphic memory of the last century and a half of León… thanks to a snowfall.