Isabel Steva "Colita", doctor honoris causa at the UAB, passes away

Colita was awarded the honorary doctorate "for her professional, civic and cultural work in the renewal of contemporary Catalan and Spanish photographic language and for her commitment to the struggles for democracy and women's equality". Francesc Vilanova, lecturer in the Department of Modern and Contemporary History, acted as sponsor at the investiture ceremony.

A disciple of photographers such as Oriol Maspons, Julio Ubiña, Francesc Català Roca and Xavier Miserachs, Colita specialised in portraiture and worked with different media such as Fotogramas, Mundo-Diario, Tele-eXprés, Destino, Interviú, Reporter, Cuadernos para el Diálogo, La Calle, Boccaccio, and many more. She was, however, a multifaceted professional; at the beginning of her career, for example, she specialised in photographing figures from the world of flamenco. During the last years of Franco's dictatorship and the transition to democracy period, she worked with the cinematographic movement known as the Escola de Barcelona, formed part of the so-called Gauche Divine in Barcelona, and worked closely with the Edigsa record company and the Nova Cançó phenomenon.

She  held more than forty exhibitions and published some thirty books on photography. Her work forms part of the collection of the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya and the permanent collection of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. In addition to an honorary doctorate from the UAB, she received numerous distinctions such as the National Photography Prize, the Gold Medal for Fine Arts, the Creu de Sant Jordi from the Government of Catalonia, the Medal for Artistic Merit from the Barcelona City Council and the FAD medal.