Yesterday I spent a very pleasant time photographing America Sanchez in his studio in Vallvidrera, from where there is a magnificent view of Barcelona. We were reviewing bits and pieces of his huge graphic work and talking about old times and about friends that are no longer here.
America Sanchez (Buenos Aires, 29 May 1939) is an Argentinean photographer, illustrator, teacher and graphic designer based in Spain, winner of the National Design Award in 1992 and one of the most prestigious and influential graphic designers in this country.
Juan Carlos Perez adopted as his artistic name the real name of his mother, America Sanchez, of which he also feels he is the artistic heir. Self-taught and influenced by his mother's artistic gifts, in the 1960s he was already working as a designer in Argentina, influenced by pop-art and learning typographic style from the so-called Swiss School, through the book The Graphic Artist and his Design Problems, by Josef Müller-Brockmann. His landing in Spain in 1965 brought him to Barcelona, where he has spent most of his prolific career, having worked for the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, La Caixa, the Barcelona City Council, the Liceo Theatre, Tricicle, the football Club Barcelona and a host of other important clients. Apart from his more creative side, he also teaches at the Eina School of Design and Art and at Seeway, Barcelona's School of Graphic Design, Animation, Digital Communication and Photography.
Always working from the pen, the brush, the charcoal, and other simpler drawing and writing materials, he is not a defender of digital tools as the maximum necessary for design or creation. He defends the bases of popular culture, and is open to all mixtures, giving great importance to the local cultural base, in addition to technique. From his facet as a photographer one can attribute to him a great documentary character and a source of inspiration for his design work.
