Visiting Vehí (Dalí's photographer)

Señor Joan Vehí Serinyana (otherwise known as Joan Vehí) and I

It had been three years since Señor Lluís Duran, Figueres hotelier and bon amic, had driven me over the Pyrenees to the Alt Empordà comarca seaside town of Cadaqués (2013). It was there that we had first met Salvador Dali’s carpenter and photographer, Joan Vehí Serinyana (otherwise known as Joan Vehí). On this occasion (2016), it was Catalan writer Azucena Moya who drove, helped us with translating and conversationally kept our minds occupied and away from the sharp bends and sheer drops of the steep Pyrenees mountain range. Sparkling Azucena had previously assisted before, and we were very happy to have such an able, knowledgable, person with us. She had helped translate in with my Art Talk in Figueres (2015).

Over many years Cadaqués has hosted a number of famous people. These include Pablo Picasso (also a friend of the Pitxot family), Antoni Pitxot (friend, collaborator and co-designer of Salvador Dali’s museum in Figueres) and Marcel Duchamp, who first discovered the town in 1933, and returned for the Summers from 1958 to 1968. Man Ray, René Magritte, Federico García Lorca and of course Salvador Dalí, all visited or stayed on in Cadaqués. As a youth Dalí stayed at the Pitxot house, and learned painting from Ramón Pichot (Pitxot) his mentor, and who was, coincidentally, friends with Pablo Picasso in Paris. Dalí had also met the love of his life, Gala (Elena Ivanovna Diakonova, then Gala Eluard, wife of Paul Eluard) when he was staying in Cadaqués in 1929. In 1930 Dalí began building his home in Port Lligat, just along the coast from Cadaqués. He lived and painted there for 40 years, until Gala’s death in 1982.

Joan Vehí was born in Cadaqués, Catalonia, Spain, on 30th May in the year that Dalí met Gala, 1929. It was also the year of the Barcelona International Exposition, the second Worlds Fair to be held in Barcelona, the first being 1888. At the tender age of fourteen Vehí, took the initiative to become a carpenter. Manuel Torrents was Vehí’s first teacher, teaching with manual tools. In 1947 Vehí learned to operate machines, and later, established the first factory wood machines in Cadaqués. Working with wood enabled Vehí to mix with the artists visiting Cadaqués, including Salvador Dalí.

Señor Lluís Duran, an old acquaintance of Señor Vehí, had arranged for Azucena and I to visit with him for an informal interview, as part of my background research. Once more we traversed the steep, pebbly, white and blue, vermillion and pink bougainvillea clad corridors, down and up to that old carpentry workshop that Señor Vehí, a cabinetmaker and carpenter by profession, had converted into a small museum dedicated to his photography (1996). We remembered that it was adjacent to the stunningly white Església de Santa Maria (Saint Mary’s Church), in Cadaqués.

To read the interview go to Issuu, The Blue Lotus issue 4, available 1st of September 2016