T
here is a treasure trove of modern European and American photography on view in Mallorca, at the Centre Internacional de Fotografia Toni Catany, and anyone with a passing interest in the medium should not miss it. This small yet important photography centre, located on a quiet street in Llucmajor has opened its doors to one of the world's most prestigious private photography collections. "From Our Hearts" presents a hundred carefully selected works from the Sondra Gilman and Celso González-Falla Collection, spanning iconic masters of 20th-century photography to emerging contemporary talents.
In 1974, Sondra Gilman purchased her first three photographs by French photographer Eugène Atget from New York's MoMA, which was deaccessioning the works as it had acquired duplicates from Berenice Abbott's archive. One of those original acquisitions features in this exhibition, marking the beginning of an extraordinary journey that would see the couple recognized among the world's top ten photography collectors by ArtNews in 2011.
"What we look for in an image is very simple: it has to move us," explains Celso González-Falla, articulating the singular criterion that has guided their acquisitions from the start. This passion resulted in a collection exceeding fifteen hundred works, where Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Mapplethorpe, Imogen Cunningham, and Bill Brandt exist alongside younger contemporary photographers who emerged in the wake of these icons.
Both Sondra and Celso had been interested in collecting before their marriage in 1986, after which they united two collecting passions into one formidable force. Their influence extended far beyond personal acquisition—Sondra's leadership helped establish the Whitney Museum of American Art's photography department in 1991, while González-Falla served as president of the Aperture Foundation's board from 2005 to 2014. In 2014, they donated 75 vintage prints of classic American photography to the Whitney, and the museum established the Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography position in her honour.
