Port accessThe photos selected for the calendar belong to the Arriola-Lerchundi Library and were taken between 1854 and 1910
The calendar will be available with the admission ticket for the Itsasmuseum, and an exhibition of large-format photo prints will be on display outside the museum until 15 January
The different pages of the now traditional and acclaimed calendar of the Port of Bilbao will once again feature the work of the photographers who have captured the spirit of the port, the river and its people. With this new edition of the calendar, the Port Authority once again continues its efforts to recover and commemorate the legacy of these artists who used their lenses to capture the daily reality of the riverside towns through their portraits, landscapes and scenes of local customs. Previous editions have showcased the work of artists such as Eulalia Abaitua, Telesforo de Errazquin, Germán Elorza and Jesús de Echebarria.
On this occasion, the photos chosen to illustrate the cover and the twelve months of the 2025 edition of the Port calendar bear the unmistakable stamp of Manuel Torcida, one of the pioneers of artistic photography in the Basque Country and founder of the renowned Casa Lux photographic studio. Born in Santander in 1864 and trained as a chemist and pharmacist, he settled in Bilbao in 1893. After visiting the Lumière photographic products factory in Lyon, where he met Auguste and Louis Lumière, the inventors of the Cinematograph, he opened a branch of their company and set up his Casa Lux studio in Bilbao.
The photographs selected for the calendar belong to his volume entitled Álbum fotográfico de Bilbao, or Photographic Album of Bilbao, owned by the Arriola-Lerchundi Library, which consists of everyday photographs, landscapes and postcard images taken between 1854 and 1910. All of them were subjected by Torcida to exhaustive editing work in the studio to improve the copies, including redrawing, in pencil and ink, some parts of the images, the end effect of which gives the photo an appearance halfway between photography, drawing and engraving. Colour, on the other hand, has been added digitally, and further enhances this pictorial character.
The photographs that feature in the calendar will be on display as large-format photo prints on the esplanade of the Itsasmuseum between 4 December 2024 and 15 January 2025. The calendar itself will be available with the admission ticket to the museum.
