Searching for Leo — Inés Rae

Searching for Leo

Exhibition open 2nd Sept - 12 Oct 2025

The exhibition Searching for Leo, Photomuseum, Zarautz, 2 Sept - 12 Oct 2025 is the result of research carried out on the life and work of photographer Leopoldo Savignac Battistini. The exhibition explores Savignac's career with a selection of the graphic magazines where his photographs were published. Savignac's photographs and articles, among others: Euskalerriaren alde, Novedades, Lux, and Photograms of the Year, clearly show the artist's technical mastery and sensitivity in his composition. The exhibition includes original works and reproductions from various public and private archives, ranging from his first award-winning images in pictorial competitions—taken mainly in San Sebastián, Zarautz, Hondarribia, and Bilbao.

Inés Rae, with a series of fictional recreations, begins an intergenerational dialogue with her grandfather's legacy, revisiting the places photographed by Savignac a century ago and proposing a meditation on the passage of time and the changes that have occurred both in the physical environment and in the photographic technologies used in different eras. An investigation into photographic and memory recovery.

Funded by Arts Council Englan and Kutxa Fundazioa the exhibition is acompanied by a brochure with text Looking for Leo in the Basque Country From San Sebastian to Bilbao by Maddi Elorza Insausti, Doctor in History of Photography, Faculty of Education, Vitoria-Gasteiz, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)

Argazki & Zinema Museoa, San Ignacio, 11 / Apdo. C. 251, E-20800 – Zarautz

https://www.photomuseum.es/index.php/es/exposicion-actual

I embark on a modern pilgrimage to Spain in search of my grandfather, Leopoldo Savignac Battistini– because my mum wanted me to, and because neither of us knew him. Mum met him only once when she was 8 years old. He was a photographer from Venezuela who emigrated to Spain and worked there 1909-1948. I have travelled through the Basque Country and Madrid to compile his archive and embarked on a conversation with his work through alternative photographic practices and creative non-fiction.

The story is about the journey itself, my observations, and discoveries. It touches on my grandfather’s link to Franco during the Spanish Civil War. It weaves memoir, travel writing and cultural history to explore ideas of place and home, of photography and memory.