Enrique Sáenz de San Pedro, Spanish photographer (Vitoria-Gasteiz, Álava, Spain, 1942). He took his first photographs and carried out his early development work in London, where he worked between 1966 and 1972 in laboratories such as Robert Horner Ltd., also collaborating with the agency Forum Futures. He studied photography at the Portsmouth College of Art (1968), and his images were published in specialized magazines such as Studio International and Amateur Photography. In 1970, he exhibited at the London Polytechnic, and in 1973 he took part in a group exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park.
Shortly before Spain’s democratic transition, he returned to the country, settling in Madrid in 1974, where he set up a studio focused on the reproduction, restoration, and printing of artworks for official institutions and publishers. These include the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, the Complutense University of Madrid, the National Archaeological Museum, National Heritage, and the Ministry of Culture. In parallel, he has pursued a personal documentary practice since the late 1960s.
His work can be associated with the generation of photographers connected to the magazine Nueva Lente, considered part of the new avant-garde of the time.
Among his most notable solo exhibitions are: the one presented in 2010 by the Inés Barrenechea Gallery titled “…Y al pasar por la Gran Vía…”, featuring images taken between 1998 and 2002 that focus on everyday life on Madrid’s Gran Vía; England 1967‑1972, held at the Royal Photographic Society of Madrid in November–December 2017; and the series Where the City Ends (since 1975), shown at CentroCentro (Palacio de Cibeles), portraying a Madrid under construction as part of the cultural program Lanzadera.
Although his work is recognized for its technical rigour in art reproduction, Sáenz de San Pedro is distinguished by a poetic, timeless documentary gaze. He is regarded as part of the generation of photographers who emerged during Spain’s democratic transition, connecting with a humanist and disruptive aesthetic in contrast to the official or commercial photography of the period.
