This exhibition aims at exploring the difficult years of the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath in the city of Valencia through the lens of photojournalist Luis Vidal Corella (Valencia, February 18, 1900 – November 18, 1959), member of a family of Valencian photographers. His father, Martín Vidal Romero, founded the family’s photography studio in Valencia.
He was one of the finest portrait photographers of the period. During the Civil War, he worked as a war photojournalist on the fronts near Valencia. In 1938, he was appointed vice-secretary of the Visual Arts Section of the Ateneu Popular Valencià, now the Ateneu Mercantil de València. After the war, he was arrested and barred from practicing his profession. He eventually found work as a photojournalist for the newspaper Levante, where he continued until his death in 1959.
Between 1914 and 1959, Luis Vidal Corella documented the most important events of his time: the proclamation of the Second Republic, the 1934 Revolution, the Civil War, and the harshest years of the postwar period. He also captured the daily lives of ordinary citizens.
During the Civil War, he immortalized Valencia, which became the capital of the Republic and a rearguard, as well as the Battle of Teruel, the capture of Ibiza, and the Albatera concentration camp.
His postwar photographs reveal both the alliances between Franco’s dictatorship, Italian fascism, and German Nazism, and the different facets of Valencian life under the dictatorship, during the difficult years of autarky.
Report by ‘24/7 Valencia’ team
Article copyright 24/7 Valencia
LUIS VIDAL CORELLA
(PHOTOGRAPHIC CHRONICLE OF THE POST-WAR PERIOD IN VALENCIA)
From December 17th until March 29 (2026)
(Alfons Roig Gallery)
Museo Valenciano de la Ilustración y la Modernidad
C/ de Quevedo, 10,
Ciutat Vella,
46001 València, Valencia
Teléfono: 963 88 37 30
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