The big picture: Joel Meyerowitz in 1960s Málaga

With his groundbreaking use of colour, the New York photographer captured a sense of freedom with flamenco artists living under General Franco’s rule

The celebrated New York-born photographer Joel Meyerowitz was 28 when he went to Málaga in 1966. He was on a road trip through Europe, 20,000 miles and 10 countries, but in Andalucia he found something like the authenticity he had been looking for. A friend of a friend introduced him to flamenco musicians in the Romany quarter, and he spent six months taking pictures, observing their lives. The Escalona family, members of which are pictured here, could trace their musical lineage back to Antonio Escalona, whose guitar-playing had inspired the revolutionary poet Federico García Lorca.

By the time Meyerowitz reached Málaga, the city had lived under General Franco’s dictatorship for nearly 30 years. Flamenco had an ambiguous position in a society dominated by church and state. It was allowed as a symbol of Spanish nationalism – a natural barrier to subversive rock’n’roll – but carried with it traditions of rebellion and freedom. A new exhibition of Meyerowitz’s pictures from that period has just opened at the Picasso Museum in Málaga.