The biography that we reproduce below is based on the one written by Inés Padrosa i Gorgot and published in 2003 in the Revista de Girona. It describes with great accuracy the life and passion of Joan Vehí. We reproduce it to make it easier to read on the website and to be able to include different direct links to the information it provides, but you can download the full original publication HERE.

Joan Vehí, photographer and collector, the living history of Cadaqués – By Inès Padrosa i Gorgot

Born in Cadaqués on May 29, 1929, Joan Vehí had a childhood and adolescence typical of any child in the town: rooted in local customs, linked to the sea and the land, he helped the family in everything that was needed. It was during one of these tasks - the 1945 harvest - that the situation arose that led to the interference in his life of a new and unusual hobby at the time: photography. At that year's harvest there was a guest with a camera who did not stop taking photos while the people of Cadaco were working in the vineyard until the moment came when he realized that there was no reel in the camera. The moment was so disappointing that it pushed him to give the device to the teenager next to him: Joan Vehí.

The reporter

Per a Vehí, an active young man who was already participating in some local activities, this gift allowed him to leave printed everything that seemed to him susceptible to be portrayed, and this is how he became a reporter who recorded everyday events and without apparent relevance at the time, other relatives, and other parties, weddings and more varied celebrations in the municipality. He collected in snapshots the traces left in the municipality by both local and popular characters with temporary stays – actors such as Chunga, Samantha Eggar, politicians such as Tarradellas, art critics such as Romero and Santos Torroella, painters such as Dalí and Pitxot, architects such as Bombelli, King Juan Carlos or Cassià Just, a native of Montserrat – which, as no official photographer has established itself in the municipality, today constitute the graphic history of the town.

The collector

Over the years, the hobby for photography was joined by that of photographic collecting. And to the well-stocked collection of cameras -some of his own and others given away-, he added the graphic material -photographs, postcards, slides, glass clichés...- that came into his hands, either as a family legacy or as a gift from those who knew his hobby. Of the different cameras with which he has practiced the technique, the one he remembers with the most affection and reluctance is a Voigländler with three lenses; and I say reluctance because they stole him from the closet where he had kept it, with the case left as a deception.

This has been and is, for our biographer, his main hobby while his occupation has been the carpenter's trade. And circumstances meant that the confluence of these two tasks led him to unsuspected paths.

Dalí's carpenter

After completing his apprenticeship in the same village, in 1951 he decided to open the carpentry shop on his own. Thanks to his good work, he was proposed by the contractor Puignau to Salvador Dalí, to prepare all kinds of carpentry work for his house in Portlligat, a relationship that began in 1952. From that date on, in addition to working on the basic issues of the house, he prepared the frames of the paintings (without having counted them, he states that thousands), among which there were many large ones, the packaging... He also executed furniture designed by Dalí. It was not easy to find the interpreter to materialize the ideas that emerged from the painter's effervescent mind. But Dalí knew that in Cadaqués he could count on the person who would solve it: Joan Vehí. He never raised any objection to his sketches, on the contrary, he figured out how to look for solutions, and found them.

Most of the accessories made were, by the painter's express will, made of olive wood, with the intention of giving way to the wood of the olive trees that died due to the frost of 1956. In any case, Vehí explains, "the olive tree is a very difficult material to work with, both because of its hardness and because the veins come backwards". Even so, the tables, tablets, desks... gradually took shape. His is the famous olive cross (made in 1956) that served as a model for the Christ of Portlligat, or a panel that stands on a triangle (1957). Dalí had the idea and prepared the sketch and he put the skill of execution and the appropriate measures into it.

Vehí and Dalí became more familiar, and the business conversations turned into gatherings in which the painter took an interest in the issues of the town. As we can imagine, Vehí, who could not help but carry his camera, did not stop doing so when he visited the painter, and on some occasions it was Dalí himself who required him to go there with the camera and portray him. In some of these encounters, Vehí recalls, he was natural, as he was, without posing or comedy. "Dalí didn't mind being portrayed, on the contrary: he got into it. He really liked to be photographed and he always surprised you with an original and artistic gesture." All told, if Vehí has the gift of being a good wood craftsman, on the photographic side his eye acts as the lens of the best cameras.

The photographic archive

In 1996 he closed the carpentry shop and allocated the space to a permanent exhibition of his photographic collections. Currently Joan Vehí's photographic archive consists of about 60,000 negatives, about 20,000 slides, as well as glass clichés and an indeterminate number of positives, material that spans from 1900 to the present day.

Publications

Some of his photos have been published by various newspapers such as La Vanguardia, Destino, Diari de Girona, l'Empordà... It is clear that, depending on the periods in which they were reproduced, the most common thing is not to find the authorship; we already know that, at a certain time, he was not strict enough in these matters. Lately, he has been asked for his photographs for different works. In Cadaqués, however, his career has been recognized for years. 1980 was the first time he was invited to an exhibition, in which Richard Hamilton, considered the father of pop-art, also participated. Later, his work has been shown in different venues in Cadacas, at the casino-society l'Amistat, at the Museum, and he has also been asked to illustrate festive programmes on various topics in the town, or to accompany monographs such as Enric Trilla's Naufrags a la mar de l'Alt Empordà (1944), Cadaqués autèntic (1998) by Heribert Gispert, Topònims de Cadaqués (1999) by Firmo Ferrer and Manuel Parés, La Llum d'Estrella Casas i Costa (1999), L'Escala. Four Centenaries; Light, Water and Fire (1999). In Cadaqués, in 1970 the filming of the film El faro del fin del mundo took place, a film version of Jules Verne's novel Le phare du boute du monde, in which actors such as Yul Brynner, Samantha Eggar and Fernando Rey participated. Our biographer, Joan Vehí, portrayed the actors and different moments of the event that have served Lluís Molinas to complete the part of the text related to the event in the monograph La Costa Brava. A set for cinema (2002).

But, in the field of publications, the most important so far is his contribution to the monograph by Aurora Perez >El retaule barroc de Cadaqués (2001). When the presentation of the book took place at the headquarters of the Alt Empordà County Council, Joan Vehí explained that his passion was to be able to photograph the altarpiece of the parish church in detail, but despite having tried, he could not achieve the right perspective given the size of the artistic ensemble. He saw the sky open to him when, on the occasion of its restoration, in 1993, the scaffolding was assembled; then he was able to fulfill his wish: he portrayed the altarpiece down to the smallest detail, images that have been basic to illustrate the study of the Baroque altarpiece.

The projects

The news that a man from Cadaquez had unpublished photographs of Salvador Dalí has transcended the media and has meant so much backwardness that he has been interviewed by newspapers from the mainland and abroad, and by national and foreign television (such as the BBC). One of these programmes, Tarasca, was recorded in 2002, and the documentary was broadcast on Sunday 22 December under the title Fusta de mestre (The relationship between Dalí and Joan Vehí). During the screening, his relationship with the painter is reflected. This programme, this year, has been awarded the Carles Rahola Prize for Journalism by the town of Cadaqués.

Joan Vehí He died on 4 May 2020 at the age of 90 . Aperson much loved by the people, who has been lucky enough to be able to savor the echo of his work, and to see how the mastery of both techniques - that of a wood craftsman and the photographic one - and his generous, simple and natural human dimension have led him, with Dalí as a springboard, to transcend from the local to the universal.