The artist?s relationship with this country began after a providential journey to Europe with his wife Maria Helguera in 1969, which enabled them to discover Barcelona, the most cosmopolitan city in those years of dictatorship. They were captivated by the city and when a few years later, in 1976, they decided to leave Argentina, they had already decided that Barcelona would be their new home. Although the decision to leave, made after the death of Franco and three months before the Argentine military coup, was not for direct political reasons, what did make them decide was the atmosphere of violence and disappearances that the South American country was beginning to experience.

The arrival of Humberto Rivas in Barcelona marked a turning point in creative photography in Catalonia and later in the rest of the country. From the start, he began forging links with the world of photography and its principal figures: first with Xavier Miserachs and Toni Catany, and, later, through the Spectrum Gallery, with Joan Fontcuberta, Pere Formiguera, Manel Esclusa and other members of the seventies generation. For all of them, in differing degrees of intensity, Rivas was a point of reference. Even today new emerging photographers still regard Humberto Rivas as their master.