Conflict and Conscience: British Artists and The Spanish Civil War

Conflict and Conscience:
British Artists and The Spanish Civil War
Introduction
he Spanish Civil War was a conflict that united
and mobilised a generation of young writers,
poets and artists with intense political fervour
against a background of the non-intervention
policies of the British and other European
governments. Their commitment to ‘The Last
Great Cause’ was expressed in many ways.
Some took direct action by fighting with the
International Brigades in Spain, others voiced their
concern for the ensuing refugee crisis through
their individual works of art, posters campaigns,
banners and billboards. The passion, innovation
and energy garnered from across the artistic
community was unprecedented and determined
the way in which the conflict was viewed at the
time and is remembered, even mythologised, in
the popular imagination. Above all, it ensured that
in this instance history would not only be ‘written’
by the victors.
T
In contrast to the experiences recounted by
writers and poets, the story of the engagement
of Britain’s visual artists in the Spanish Civil War
conflict remains largely untold. This exhibition
seeks to redress the balance and consider how and
why the conflict touched individuals’ consciences
and made them want to act in some way. It
presents work across the full spectrum of artistic
styles from realist to abstract, from members of
the Bloomsbury Group to the British Surrealists
and in all media: painting, design, printmaking, film,
photography, textiles and sculpture as well as the
cross-over between art and literature.
Unknown Help Spain, 1937, Off-set lithograph on paper,
75.5 x 49.2cm, Courtesy of the People’s History Museum
and the haunting resonance of Francisco de Goya’s
devastating Los desastres de la guerra.
The Spanish Civil War and its artistic and literary
legacy continue to capture the imagination of new
generations, perhaps because the parallels with
contemporary conflicts are all too clear. As Albert
Camus observed, it was in Spain that :
The different themed displays offer an insight
into various aspects of the conflict, including
the fear generated by aerial bombardment, the
evacuation of thousands of Spanish children to
Britain, the plight of refugees, the innovative
use of photography in war propaganda and the
art of political protest. It also focuses on the
involvement of female artists and the impact of
iconic works by international artists such as Pablo
Picasso’s Guernica - exhibited in Britain in 1938-9,
‘men learned that one can be right and still be
beaten, that force can vanquish spirit, that there
are times when courage is not its own reward. It is
this, without doubt, which explains why so many
men throughout the world regard the Spanish
drama as a personal tragedy.’
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The Spanish Civil War
‘In creating the world’s memory of the Spanish civil
war, the pen, the brush and the camera wielded on
behalf of the defeated have proved mightier than
the sword and the power of those who won.’
Eric Hobsbawm
The Spanish Civil War (July 1936 - April 1939)
was arguably one of the most politically and
socially significant conflicts of the twentiethcentury. It was far more than an internal binary
conflict between the left-wing, democratically
elected Spanish Republicans and the right-wing
Nationalist insurgents led by General Francisco
Franco – it was a battle-ground for various
opposing ideologies in the 1930s; for freedom
versus tyranny, for democracy against Fascism.
In Britain views ranged from Oswald Mosley and
his ‘Blackshirts’ on the far right, to those who
sought appeasement, non-intervention and
a pacifist solution, and the Communist party
members who demanded direct intervention
to avoid a much wider European war. Amongst
British artists, a few were supportive of General
Franco and others took an apolitical stance, but it
was the cause of Republican Spain that attracted
the most widespread support coordinated
under the auspices of the Artists International
Association (AIA).
Quentin Bell, May Day Procession 1937 with Banners
Quentin Bell painted May Day Procession 1937
with Banners. This painting records the intensity
of feeling at the annual workers’ protest, with a
sea of red flags and political banners in support of
left-wing causes and Republican Spain. Banners
had been traditionally carried by workers since
the rise of trade unions in the 1840s. During
the conflict they served to convey messages
of solidarity and raise awareness of the plight
of refugees. The picture captured the potent
atmosphere of these protests in the late 1930s.
Art of Political Protest
From the onset of the conflict in 1936 British
artists across all styles and movements engaged
in relief efforts and campaigns for Spain using
posters, banners, rallies and marches to express
solidarity and generate support. They were
inspired by actual events, humanitarian issues,
the imagery of Republican poster design and the
innovative techniques of photomontage.
The traditional May Day processions provided
a platform for artists to leave their studios and
protest along with the masses on the streets.
The Surrealists’ participation in the 1938 May
Day Parade in Hyde Park formed one of the
most memorable political actions made by any
artistic group. A group of four joined the march,
sporting city attire, swinging umbrellas and
wearing papier-mâché masks in the image of
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, made by F.E.
McWilliam.
Most of these artists were members of the
left-wing organisation AIA. Many such as Clive
Branson were also involved with the International
Labour Party and the Communist Party. With
his wife Noreen, Branson had set up an Aid Spain
committee in Battersea in 1936 organising
events such as the one depicted in his painting
Demonstration in Battersea 1937.
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a foot wearing alpargatas (traditional peasant
footwear), suggesting that the common people
will crush the fascists. The strong graphic in both
these posters produced a direct message that
needed little interpretation.
In January 1939 Graham Bell and fellow realist
artists painted a series of banners using imagery
based on Goya’s Disasters of War that could be
taken on demonstrations. They were used at an
‘Arms for Spain’ rally in Trafalgar Square on 17
February 1939, only ten days before Britain and
France unconditionally recognised the Franco
government as the sole legitimate regime.
Nonetheless, the demonstrations and relief
campaigns continued in earnest. The banners
were seen again at the May Day parade in
Trafalgar Square and exhibited at the Whitechapel
Gallery. They were apparently later confiscated
by the Home Guard, their gruesome imagery and
message perhaps inappropriate for the morale of
a country now at war.
Photomontage became a powerful propaganda
tool and images of mother and child, the peasant
farmer, destroyed buildings and war planes the
evocative motifs frequently revisited in the
posters of British artists.
In a symbolic and befitting gesture, an
International Brigade Banner, made and presented
by the Women of Barcelona was presented to
the British Battalion at the farewell parade of the
International Brigades in October 1938.
Propaganda
Propaganda played a crucial role in the campaigns
of both sides of the Spanish Civil War. The
Republican government’s culture and propaganda
ministers mindful for the need of support from
outside Spain, and to counter negative propaganda
from the Nationalists, used dynamic revolutionarystyle imagery to broadcast their message.
In 1936 John Banting returned from a visit to
Spain with a collection of Republican posters,
among which was one of the most striking pieces
of propaganda to emerge from the Spanish Civil
War, ¿Que haces tú para evitar esto? Ayuda a
Madrid (What are you doing to prevent this?
Help Madrid). It was a powerful example of
how photomontage could be deployed to make
explicit the potent visual association between the
suffering of innocent victims and, in this case, the
Nationalist’s bombing of Spanish cities.
Frank Brangwyn, For the relief of Women and Children in Spain,
1937, Leicestershire County Council, Artworks Collection
In Pere CatalàI’s 1936 poster Aixafem el
Feixisme (Let’s Squash Fascism), photomontage
was also used to convey the connection
between the current civil war and an impending
wider European fight against fascism. In his
composite poster a swastika is stamped on by
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In Britain however, the question of whether
the style and subject matter of modernist art
could convey as clear a message and serve
as propaganda led to frequent disagreements
between the Surrealists and Realists. Whilst the
immediacy of posters calling for aid created by
the likes of E. McKnight Kauffer, Frank Brangwyn
and Felicity Ashbee was easily apparent, the
effectiveness of more abstract imagery, such as
Henry Moore’s motif for the Surrealist declaration
We Ask Your Attention 1938 or Joan Miró’s Aidez
L’Espagne (Help Spain) 1937 was not so evident.
Ceri Richards and Sam Haile painting a hoarding in London,
February 1939, Black and white photograph, The Murray
Family Collection
Felicity Ashbee’s series of posters They Face
Famine in Spain, 1937, for the Winter Relief
Fund show children in pitiful conditions. They
are direct and unsentimental. They call for milk,
clothing and medical aid with uncompromising
imagery. Their impact was so shocking that
they were deemed too political to be used on
London Transport. Frank Brangwyn’s poster
Spain, 1937, conveys the same message but in a
more benevolent manner in keeping with his own
pacifist perspective and the non-partisan General
Relief Fund.
A photograph by John F. Stephenson captures a
crowd watching artists at work on a billboard in
Bouverie Street, calling for support to send food
ships to Spain. At another site in Hammersmith,
surrealists Ceri Richards and Sam Haile were
photographed painting a billboard featuring the
Spanish Republican flag emblazoned with the
hard-hitting headline: ‘25,000 children have been
killed, 50,000 are starving in Spain: Send them
Food’
The American London-based avant-garde
designer E. McKnight Kauffer, drew on a wide
variety of styles to produce his iconic posters. In
Help to Send Medical Aid to Spain designed for
the Spanish Medical Aid Committee he alludes
to El Greco’s Self-Portrait as St Luke (with an
implicit reference to St Luke the Evangelist, both
an artist and a doctor). The poster does not
show anything discernibly to do with medical aid,
except the red cross symbol, yet it is a powerful
example of emotive graphic design, underscored
with the simple appeal ‘Help wounded human
beings’. He succeeds in creating accessible visual
imagery that would generate support for relief
work and fundraising campaigns without being
too visceral.
As the Nationalist forces gained ground and the
refugee crisis escalated, these billboards were
part of a final concerted effort by the British
artistic community committed to the Republican
cause to keep the plight of the innocent victims
of the Spanish Civil War alive in the public
consciousness, and the aid flowing.
Words in this pack which are underlined refer
to the References and Connection sections
on pages 25 to 29.
By February 1939 a total of ninety artists were
involved in a concentrated frenzy of activity
to paint twenty-two billboard sites in London
with illustrated slogans urging people to support
Spanish Relief efforts. Although these giant
‘posters’ were only in place for a couple of weeks,
the appeal attracted much coverage in the press.
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1: The Last Great Cause : Mobilising Public Opinion
T
he Spanish Civil War threw into stark relief the fundamental question of the nature of the artist’s
role within society and their engagement with politics. Some had experienced the Great War, others
had been too young to fight but none could ignore the rising threat of Fascism and what this would
inevitably mean for Britain. The conflict in Spain caught the conscience of a generation concerned about
the humanitarian plight of refugees and the victims of war and bombings. To join the fight against
Franco was to defend a democratically-elected government, to defend values and ideals that artists,
poets and writers cherished and responded to with passion, commitment and what could be seen as
romantic heroism. It has often been referred to as ‘The Last Great Cause’.
The work of several artists was influenced by their first-hand experiences of Spain. David Bomberg and
Edward Burra were in Spain in the years before the Civil War but were forced to leave as violence broke
out. Teenager Ursula McCannell was on holiday in Andalusia as tensions mounted and witnessed the
reality of rural poverty. She returned home to become passionately involved in the cause and produce
some of the most chilling images of desperate, dispossessed refugees. Others, including Roland
Penrose, S W Hayter and John Banting found ways to visit Spain during the conflict on missions to assist
in the protection of Spain’s cultural patrimony, or record or collect material.
The question of direct action versus artistic creation and indeed whether art and politics should mix was
much discussed. Paul Robeson, speaking at The ‘Spain and Culture’ event held 24 June 1937 declared
that ‘.. the artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or slavery’. But the choice was
not so clear cut for mothers such as Vanessa Bell, who wrote to her son Julian that ‘it is clearly better to
help by thinking, writing, speaking, planning, rather than action in the field.’ Tragically, she was unable
to dissuade him from joining the International Brigades, at the cost of his life. Likewise the question of
allegiance to one side or the other was not always straightforward or necessary. Paintings produced by
artists such as Burra are some of the most powerful images to emerge from the conflict, despite (or
perhaps because of) his apolitical stance.
The AIA, formed as early as 1933, had over 600 members by 1936 and organised campaigns and
exhibitions such as Artists against Fascism and War in Soho Square (Nov 1935) attracting more than
6000 visitors, Artists help Spain (Dec 1936 ) and the Exhibition for Unity of Artists for Peace, for
Democracy, for Cultural Progress in aid of the Spanish Republic (Spring 1937). These events united
artists across the spectrum of artistic styles. Whether realist, abstract, British surrealist or members of
the Bloomsbury Group, all contributed in their own way to the design of posters, banners and billboards,
portrait painting or by donating their works to raise funds for medical supplies and humanitarian relief.
Painters who aligned themselves with the Nationalists such as Francis Rose and William Russell Flint
were often artistically and politically conservative and particularly concerned about reports of anticlerical activities and the spread of communism. Flint had travelled extensively in the Iberian Peninsula
in the 1920s and 1930s, painting romantic views of ‘Old Spain’ with Mediterranean townscapes,
bullfighters and nubile flamenco dancers. His painting In their Own Homes, subtitled Spain’s Agony of
Civil War, 1936–38, and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1938 amounted to a direct statement in
support of the Nationalists.
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1: The Last Great Cause : Mobilising Public Opinion
Clive Branson, Demonstration In Battersea, 1939
Oil on canvas 40x 60cm
Dedicated to Comrade E Marney. Collection of Rosa Branson
Clive Branson joined the International Brigade in spring 1937. He went to Spain the following year
and served in the Major Attlee Company of the British Battalion. He was captured after the Battle at
Calaceite in March 1938 and imprisoned in a disused monastery near Burgos in northern Spain. Branson
wrote of his experiences of imprisonment, and those of his fellow Brigade members, in poems such
as San Pedro. Later that year Branson was transferred to an Italian concentration camp at Palencia.
Through family connections he managed to obtain art materials and painted a series of views of the
prison camp. These views of nondescript buildings and trees bleached in strong sunlight are painted in
a bold palette that recalls Van Gogh’s paintings of fields in the south of France. He also wrote poems
such as In the Camp which reiterate his sense of being imprisoned and looking out at the surrounding
landscape. In August 1938 at the request of the prison authorities he filled a sketchbook with pencil
studies of his fellow British prisoners. They depict the sitter in profile, reading, or lost in their thoughts.
After his release in October 1938 Branson returned to painting. His canvases of working class areas of
Battersea are based on his experience of living there and working with the Aid Spain committee that
he set up with his wife Noreen in 1936. They organised numerous events such as the one depicted in
Demonstration in Battersea.
• The picture is full of
propaganda. Apart from
flags and banners a slogan
painted in the road reads
‘AID Spain’. Women are
reading posters and holding
a copy of ‘Co-operative
News’. News stands
advertise the Daily Worker.
• Other paintings by Branson
Key elements
• The scene shows a crowd of protesters assembling and waving
the Spanish Republican Tricolour and Communist flags on a street
corner in working-class South London.
• The banners are of the Communist Party of Great Britain
Battersea Branch, note the predominance of red elsewhere in
the painting.
• Branson painted in a consciously naïve figurative style that recalls
the work of the Ashington Art Group, a group of Northumberland
miners without artistic training who became known as the Pitmen
Painters for their depictions of everyday life in the 1930s.
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such as Daily Worker,
1937, and Selling the
Daily Worker outside
Projectile Engineering
Works, 1937, reflected the
political engagement of the
working classes, and made
oblique criticism of British
militarism.
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2: We Ask Your Attention: The British Surrealist
Group Takes Arms
A
mongst the small group who formed the British Surrealists were the poet and critic Herbert Read,
the poet and artist David Gascoyne and the artist and collector Roland Penrose. Together they
organised the First International Surrealist Exhibition, June 1936 in London, featuring works by leading
European avant-garde artists such as Dalí, Picasso, Magritte and Miró as well as twenty-three British
artists. It was an event that drew harsh criticism from those who ridiculed Surrealism’s revolutionary
claims as socially irresponsible. However the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War later that year focused
the group’s thoughts and consciences. The desire to take militant action to stop the spread of Fascism
inspired them to issue manifestos, to take part in marches and exhibitions, and participate in debates
about Spain and politics.
Above all, the British Surrealists’ engagement with the Spanish Civil War was characterised by a spirit
of ‘imaginative freedom’. Their refusal to be tied down to the creation of literal or didactic works of art
reflected their calls for a revolution that had as its objective the development of consciousness.
Roland Penrose had strong links to the European Surrealists. He spent part of the summer with Paul
Éluard and Picasso in France where reports of the fighting in Spain caused them all ‘agonising misgivings’.
In October 1936 he headed for Spain to see the situation for himself. He accompanied Christian Zervos
and David Gascoyne on a visit to Catalonia to report on efforts to prevent cultural vandalism and to
gather information for a book on recently-discovered Catalan art. Penrose brought back an eyewitness
account of unfolding events. He took photographs documenting street processions of anarchist
organisations and trade unions, damage to buildings from artillery fire, and troops in training camps. He
also brought back to London photographs from the front by Hungarian war photographer Robert Capa.
In November 1936 the British Surrealists issued a ‘Declaration on Spain’ in which they stated their
political position and opposition to the British government’s policy of non-intervention. They supported
the popular demand of ‘Arms for the People of Spain’ to enable them to fight Franco’s forces. Their
stance was made even more explicit with a broadsheet entitled We Ask Your Attention designed by
Henry Moore. It was issued in Spring 1937 to mark the occasion of the Arts International Congress
and given to visitors attending the exhibition Unity of Artists for Peace, for Democracy, for Cultural
Progress. The surrealist section of the exhibition featured work by leading international figures as well as
British artists. The artistic style of some British Surrealists at this time was however considered as being
more expressive of subtle inversion than direct intervention and in stark contrast to the directness of
the broadsheet’s message.
Although loosely affiliated to the Surrealist group, the artist Edward Burra was ostensibly apolitical,
believing in people as individuals and never explicitly expressing public support for fascism, communism or
any other political unit. Disturbed by the scenes he had personally witnessed at the outbreak of the war
his paintings, peopled by haunting hooded figures, suggest that the potential for violence is ever-present.
Wyndham Lewis had also experienced Spain in the years before the Civil War. This had a marked
influence on his interpretation of the conflict and his allegiances. His response to the contemporary
situation was to reinterpret the visual language of historic artworks. His depiction of the 15th century
Siege of Barcelona is an implicit comment on modern Spain, although he remained deeply suspicious and
critical of communist support of the Republicans.
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2: We Ask Your Attention: The British Surrealist
Group Takes Arms
S.W. Hayter, Paysage Anthropophage (Man-eating landscape), 1937
Oil on panel 100 x 200 cm
Private Collection, France
Stanley William Hayter was an English printmaker, draughtsman and painter who moved to Paris
in 1929. In Paris he set up Atelier 17, an avant-garde print studio that became legendary for its
innovative approach to printmaking and the collaborative spirit it fostered. It became an important
meeting point for British and international artists in the 1930s. Hayter was one of the most influential
British printmakers of the twentieth century and a key figure in the Surrealist movement. Hayter went
to Spain in September 1937 at the invitation of the Republican government. Amongst other places he
visited Madrid, where he saw the new edition of Goya’s Los Desastres de la Guerra being printed. He
also recorded his experience of prisons, batteries, trenches and schools in paintings and drawings that
were exhibited at the Mayor Gallery in February 1938. A number of boldly coloured, abstract paintings
resulted from his trip and convey his impassioned response to the Spanish Civil War and the rise of
Fascism. The violent imagery and tragic figurative elements within these paintings and related etchings
express the suffering, violence and the intransigence of warring factions.
• The bright colours evoke
the searing heat and
sharp contours of a barren
landscape hiding the deeper,
darker emotions of Spain.
• Surrealist painter and critic
Edouard Jaguer, claims
Hayter’s ‘superb Paysage
Anthropophage of 1937
as one of the most forceful
canvases of the pre-war
period of surrealism.’
Key elements
• The title of Paysage Anthropophage refers to the play The Siege
of Numantia by 16th century author Miguel de Cervantes. The
play recounts the defence of Numantia, a city on the banks of
the River Douro, besieged by the Romans in 133 BC. Cervantes’s
tragedy finds its parallel in the throes of the Spanish Civil War and
the heroism of a people against a tremendous enemy.
• The apocalyptic imagery of Paysage Anthropophage (Man-
eating Landscape) specifically refers to Act IV, Sc. 4, where the
starving Numancians decide to eat their Roman prisoners.
• Amidst the devastation naked figures lay supine. In the foreground a
figure lies with his arm outstretched before a stricken female figure.
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10
3: Amongst the Ruins: Guernica and the Threat
of Bombing
O
n 26 April 1937 the undefended Basque capital of Guernica was subjected to aerial bombardment
by the German Condor Legion on behalf of Franco’s Nationalist forces. It was an unparalleled attack
on a civilian population and signalled a sinister shift in the tactics of modern warfare. The terrible human
cost and desperate plight of innocent women and children became the focus of concerted artistic
response and relief efforts.
In the same year Josep Renau, on behalf of the Republican Government, commissioned Picasso
to create a work for the Spanish Pavilion at the World’s Fair in Paris; a work that would bring the
Republican cause to the attention of the international community. As news reached the outside world
of the devastation wrought upon Guernica, Picasso found his subject for the canvas. His response to the
atrocity was uncompromising and resulted in his iconic masterpiece Guernica - without doubt the most
famous artwork to emerge from the entire conflict.
The bombing of Guernica alerted Britain to the very real threat of attack from the air. The ARP (Air Raid
Precaution organisation) and the WVS (Women’s Voluntary Service ) were set up to advise and reassure
the public. Images of aeroplanes, bombs, searchlights as well as depictions of the vulnerable - the
elderly, injured, women and children - became the motifs featured in poster campaigns by artists such
as Felicity Ashbee, E. McKnight Kauffer and Frank Brangwyn.
The theme of bombing is also present in Clive Branson’s realist painting Selling the Daily Worker Outside
Projectile Engineering Works, 1937. His implicit message is that the working class should be aware
of the political significance of the bombs they were manufacturing. The picture also underlines the
commonly held belief in communist circles that the main victims of a future war to defend capitalism
would be the workers themselves.
The imagery and artistic language of Picasso’s Guernica had a significant impact upon the work of many
British artists: surrealist, abstract and realist. Several, including Henry Moore and Roland Penrose, had
visited Picasso during the process of creating his masterpiece and many others saw the finished work
when it was first exhibited at the fair in Paris 1937. Picasso’s radical stylised response to the atrocity
drew much criticism amongst the artistic elite and generated considerable debate. Penrose, to counter
accusations that the work was too obscure to be understood by ‘the man in the street’, organised for
Guernica and its preparatory paintings, sketches and studies to be shown at the New Burlington Galleries,
London in October 1938, so that the ‘British Public might be allowed to judge for themselves’. The
exhibition was held in aid of The National Joint Committee for Spanish Relief. In January 1939 Guernica
was shown at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, where it was seen by 15,000 people and raised funds for a
food ship to Spain. Its resonance amongst the working classes of London’s East End dispelled all misgivings
about its abstracted style and doubts about its appropriateness in depicting the horrors of war.
When pressed on the symbolism and interpretation of Guernica Picasso himself replied: ‘... this bull is a bull
and this horse is a horse (...) If you give a meaning to certain things in my paintings it may be very true,
but it is not my idea to give this meaning. What ideas and conclusions you have got I obtained too, but
instinctively, unconsciously. I make the painting for the painting. I paint the objects for what they are.’
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3: Amongst the Ruins: Guernica and the Threat
of Bombing
Pablo Picasso, Weeping Woman (Femme en pleurs), 26 October 1937
Oil on canvas
Tate. Accepted by H.M. Government in lieu of tax with additional payment (Grant-in-Aid) made with
assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Art Fund and the Friends of the Tate Gallery, 1987
The painting Weeping Woman was included in the New Burlington Galleries exhibition of October 1938.
It was bought by Roland Penrose directly from Picasso in November 1937, together with an etching of
the same subject. The ‘Weeping Woman’ motif is considered to be the most enduring theme to have
emerged from the Guernica project. Picasso completed 27 drawings and 9 paintings of the subject. His
obsession with the imagery of weeping women and tears had already been voiced in an earlier prose
poem that accompanied his etchings Dream and Lie of Franco, ‘ ... cries of children cries of women cries
of birds cries of flowers cries of timbers and of stones ...’ For Picasso women and children were at the
very core of humanity and their suffering as innocent defenceless victims was humanity’s woe.
• A handkerchief is gripped by teeth and hands
in a gesture of grief, but cannot hide the
woman’s agonised grimace.
• The eyes contain the reflection of airplanes -
‘these engines of destruction which are the
cause of her agony seem to slip from their
sockets, capsized like boats in a tempest,
while a river of tears runs over the contour of
her cheek towards her ear, whose ornamental
shape suggests a butterfly sipping the salt of
her misery.’ (Roland Penrose)
• The hair is swept back and worn with a short
fringe, recognisably that of Dora Maar, the
principal model for most of the series. Maar
was also a photographer. She recorded all the
permutations and changes as the composition
of Guernica took shape.
• The use of such brilliant and brash colouring in
association with grief was without precedent
and is quite disconcerting. It seems as if
tragedy arrived without any warning. Other
elements of the painting are very mundane:
the stitching on the jacket, the striped
wallpaper and dado rail. These ordinary details
make the anguish of the Weeping Woman the
more extraordinary and extreme.
Key elements
• Picasso’s Weeping Woman is a brilliantly
coloured profile portrait of a grief-stricken
woman. The chaotic arrangement of facial
features in overlapping angular planes, vivid
colours and dark lines evokes a state of
confusion and distress.
• The teeth and open mouth evoke the
anguished scream of a tormented horse or
wailing mother.
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4: The Past in the Present: Historic Parallels
‘when I took pictures in war, I couldn’t help thinking of Goya’ Don McCullin
O
nce seen, Francisco de Goya’s Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War) can never be
forgotten. His images speak for the senseless brutality, depravity and abuse of power of all wars
past and present. No detail escapes his caustic comment and unflinching reportage. The viewer is
confronted with shocking images of truths about the human impact of war that cannot be ignored.
Goya created the series towards the end of his life in response to the suffering and hardship he had
witnessed during the Peninsular War (1808-14). They were a powerful comment on the barbarity
of war and a testament to what Goya had described as ‘el desmembramiento d’España’ – the
dismemberment of Spain.
Spanish painter Don Timoteo Pérez Rubio, involved in Republican efforts to protect Spain’s artistic
heritage, had brought a collection of Goya’s work including a final edition of The Disasters of War to
the Spanish Embassy in London. With an introduction from S W Hayter, who had seen plates of The
Disasters of War being printed in Madrid, he made contact with the V&A and put forward a proposal
for an exhibition of the ‘Goyas’. Pérez hoped that such an Exhibition at the V&A ‘would convince British
people that the Government of Spain did not consist entirely of barbarians’. With assurances that the
event would not imply partiality to either side of the conflict nor compromise government policy of
non-intervention, the exhibition took place from July to September 1938.
Inevitably, the exhibition of these historic prints at such a poignant moment, and in such a prestigious
venue, was politically charged and fuelled propagandist exchanges from all sides. However it did serve
to discredit propaganda claims by the Nationalists that the Republicans had sold all the ‘Goyas’ held in
the Prado to the Soviet Union. More significantly, it brought Goya’s work to new audiences and greatly
influenced the way in which British artists responded to themes of war.
Goya was also a direct point of reference for the Realists, including several members of the Euston
Road School. The group’s largely socialist members asserted the importance of painting traditional
subjects in a figurative manner and sought to create a widely understandable and socially relevant art.
Lawrence Gowing, who was to be a conscientious objector in the Second World War, produced an oil
painting titled Non-Combatant 5th May (after Goya) c.1939. In January 1939 Graham Bell and fellow
realist artists painted a series of banners based on images from The Disasters of War. The banners
served to keep the reality of war and plight of refugees in the public eye. They were seen by thousands
at rallies such an ‘Arms for Spain’ in Trafalgar Square and the May Day Procession 1939, and were also
exhibited as ‘a broken frieze’ at the Whitechapel Art Gallery.
The human impact of war became the focus of war photographers and filmmakers. Documentary
images of actual events reached the public through publications such as Picture Post and photographic
images were used and exploited in the form of photomontage on propaganda posters in Spain and in
Britain. Propaganda films were also widely used by both sides in Spain as a medium to raise and win
support. British filmmaker Ivor Montagu went to Spain during the conflict to make propaganda films for
the Republicans, notably his compilation film Defence of Madrid (1936).
Goya’s The Disasters of War was seen again later that year, along with paintings by Ribera, Velázquez,
Zurbarán and Murillo in an exhibition entitled From Greco to Goya. The exhibition was held in London at
the Spanish Art Gallery to raise money for the British Red Cross Spanish Relief Fund.
14
4: The Past in the Present: Historic Parallels
Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) Los Desastres de la Guerra
‘the greatest anti-war manifesto in the history of art’ Robert Hughes
Whilst Napoleon’s professional artists were painting heroic scenes of victory in battle, Goya was
recording a very different picture of the war devoid of any glory, chivalry or fame. He was disenchanted
with society, having witnessed the depths of human misery, death and famine caused by the Peninsular
War and the consequences of the restoration of an absolute monarchy.
The series of 80 etchings and aquatints divides into three groups: prints of wartime ‘disasters’
responding to the Napoleonic invasion of Spain; a record of the famine in Madrid of 1811-12, in which
more than 20,000 people died; and a final ‘chapter’ of so-called allegorical caprichos lampooning the
repressive government of Ferdinand VII, who returned to Spain as king in 1814. In each image Goya
prioritises the centre of the action. He focuses entirely on the human figures and their physicality. His
protagonists are often anonymous figures, innocent victims including women and children, showing
desperate courage in the face of overwhelming forces.
Madre Infeliz! (Unhappy Mother!), 1810-1820, Published 1863
Etching, burnished aquatint and drypoint on wove paper. 17.4 x 12.8.
Lent by David Scrase
• Goya contrasts the visible beauty of the
young mother’s face against the heart-rending
sobbing of her daughter. The size of the
adults against that of the child emphasises her
vulnerability. She trails behind, wiping away
her tears with her hands; a tiny defenceless
figure in a hostile landscape.
• The characters appear almost luminous against
the dense dark background. Goya directs our
gaze towards the body of the woman and the
faces and bodies of the men who carry her
and the crying child.
Key elements
• Together the group form an arc that
accentuates the idea of beginning and end, life
and death.
• The composition shows the horrors produced
by hunger, the fragility of life and loneliness.
• In the background you can just make out the
• The body of the woman is carried by three
body of another victim.
men. You can almost feel the limp weight of
the woman’s body and the physical tension in
the bodies of the men.
15
16
4: The Past in the Present: Historic Parallels
Nada. Ello dirá (Nothing - The event will tell), 1810-1820, Published 1863
Etching, burnished aquatint, lavis, drypoint and burin on wove paper. 19.6 x 14.5.
Lent by David Scrase
This etching has generated more commentary than any other in the series. Above all by those seeking
interpretations that might shed light on Goya’s innermost thoughts. It is possible that he saw it as the
last plate in the series, as key to understanding everything that had preceded it.
• On the left we can just make out the scales of
justice. Yet there is no justice.
• The message is clear, that all the pain and
suffering counted for nothing: before, there
was light, now only death and darkness. The
voice of reason has been silenced.
• Perhaps it is a cry of despair - that man never
learns.
• Goya denounces the consequences of war on
society, the hypocrisy, the profiteering, and
return of absolutism - stopping at nothing
and sparing no-one.
Key elements
• A decomposing corpse holds a sign on which
is written Nada (Nothing). Behind it, a mass of
sinister faces and threatening figures emerge
from the shadows.
17
18
5: Helping them to forget: Spanish Refugees
and Prisoners
T
he Spanish Civil War caused a refugee crisis of unprecedented scale, with millions of displaced
people in Spain, more than 500,000 in France and thousands of others fleeing as far as the New
World. The National Joint Committee for Spanish Relief chaired by Conservative MP Katherine StewartMurray, organised poster campaigns and the despatch of medical aid and relief supplies. Appeals were
launched for money, clothing, medical supplies, aid and ships. Many British artists became involved in
fundraising initiatives offering support and aid to refugees arriving in Britain, as well for those in Spain
and in France.
Following the bombing of Guernica in April 1937 the situation in the Basque region of northern
Spain became increasingly desperate. The Basque government appealed to foreign countries to
give temporary asylum to its refugee children. The British government, bound by its policy of nonintervention, initially refused but later, thanks to the campaigning of Katherine Stewart-Murray,
reluctantly gave in. In April 1937, 4,000 children, their teachers and helpers arrived in Southampton on
the SS Habana. At first they lived under canvas at a camp at North Stoneham near Eastleigh. Later they
were dispersed to ‘colonies’ around the country run and financed by volunteers, trade unions and church
groups, including Lord Faringdon’s home at Buscot Park.
Photographer Edith Tudor-Hart captured the everyday life of the children at Stoneham in a memorable
sequence of documentary photographs. She used the camera as a way of ‘recording and influencing
the life of the people and prompting human understanding nationally and internationally’. Another
pioneering photographer was Helen Muspratt who assisted with fundraising and finding homes for the
niños vascos. She recorded many of the children in poignant photographs.
By the outbreak of the Second World War most of the children had been repatriated. However, over
400 remained, either because they were of age and chose to stay or because their parents were dead
or imprisoned. Around 250 of these stayed in Britain permanently.
Photographs of refugees not only brought the stark realities of the conflict into British homes but also
inspired the work of British painters. Documentary photographs published in magazines such as Picture
Post and newspaper reportage would influence works such as Spanish Refugees (1940) by Michael
Rothenstein and the paintings of Ursula McCannell.
The uncertain fate of prisoners in concentration camps was also a primary concern. In the years
following the Nationalist victory early in 1939, over a million Republican supporters were imprisoned or
sent to labour camps. That first winter thousands fled Franquist reprisals, escaping across the Pyrenees
into France. Their perilous situation now became the focus of relief efforts, in particular concern for
the safety of thirty-five Spanish artists, including Josep Renau, known to be among those in camps in
southern France. An appeal was launched In April 1939 to help them reach Mexico.
The physical effects of internment are captured in Hubert Finney’s watercolour Spanish Prisoner of
War, 1938. His portrait shows an older male whose reddened eyes and forlorn expression convey the
air of a man broken by his experiences. In contrast Henry Moore explored the psychological state of
imprisonment in his more abstract drawing and lithograph Spanish Prisoner. He produced this work in
1939 with the specific intention of raising money for the Republican prisoners held in the detention
camps in France, but it was never published due to the outbreak of the Second World War.
19
5: Helping them to forget: Spanish Refugees
and Prisoners
Henry Moore, Spanish Prisoner, 1939
Lithograph in various colours on English Cartridge
The Henry Moore Foundation: gift of the artist 1977
Henry Moore visited Spain in 1934 on a touring holiday. Amongst Spain’s many art treasures he saw the
cave paintings at Altamira, the El Greco paintings in Toledo and the Old Spanish Masters at the Prado.
Though he never returned to Spain, the country and its art continued to hold a special significance for him.
Moore had lived through the First World War and experienced the horrors of the trenches. Like his
contemporaries he was shocked by the Spanish Civil War and all that it foretold of an impending wider
conflict. He believed in the artist’s role in defending democracy and wrote of how, ‘unless he is prepared
to see all thought pressed into one reactionary mould by tyrannical dictatorships – to see the beginning
of another set of dark ages – the artist is left with no choice but to help in the fight for the real
establishment of Democracy against the menace of Dictatorships’. This sentiment was reinforced by his
visit to Pâris in 1937 to see Picasso working on Guernica.
Throughout the conflict Moore participated in numerous exhibitions, campaigns and initiatives to
provide relief for Spain. He exhibited with the British Surrealist Group, designed their broadsheet We Ask
Your Attention and signed their ‘Declaration on Spain’. Moore’s distinctive style was influenced by the
surrealists but also combined figurative and abstract elements. His source of inspiration was the human
body, its forms and postures: ‘In the human figure one can express more completely one’s feelings about
the world than in any other way.’
Key elements
• The human power of Spanish Prisoner comes
from the submissive angle of the jaw and the
sorrowful eyes that look out from the visorlike frame and barbed wire.
• The vertical lines are suggestive of the bars in
a prison window. This detail develops an earlier
motif seen in drawings such as Five Figures
in a Setting, 1937, where Moore depicted
stringed sculptural forms contained within an
enclosed space, suggestive of prison walls.
• The barbed wire stretched across the frame is
a menacing presence, generating tension and
symbolising a cruel improvised trap.
• The edition of Spanish Prisoner was never
printed due to the outbreak of the Second
World War. However, Moore developed his
ideas further into a three-dimensional form in
his stringed sculpture Head, 1939. This relates
very closely to the drawing and print, even
including the suggestion of the eyes which
appear in the drawing.
20
21
6: The Spanish Civil War as an Inspiration to
Later Artists
I
n February 1939 the British Government formally recognised General Franco’s Nationalist
Government in Spain. Franco established an autocratic dictatorship, Francoist Spain, a totalitarian
state of which he remained leader until his death in 1975, at which point the Spanish monarchy and
democracy were restored.
The years of the Spanish Civil War however raised philosophical and political issues that continued
to trouble, fascinate and inspire artists. In the decades that followed the conflict in Spain artists
throughout Europe sought answers to the inescapable questions about humanity and war that it had
brought to bear.
Guernica endorsed the conviction of British artists such as Merlyn Evans that the artist’s role in
uncertain times was to present ‘the aggressive instinct for power and destruction’. Evans’ own painting,
Distressed Area, 1938, reflected his outrage at the political and humanitarian situation in Spain and at
British foreign policy in relation to it. The motifs that featured in Picasso’s studies were also a powerful
stimulus for British sculptors such as Henry Moore and F.E. McWilliam seeking a vocabulary of forms
with which to convey the darkness and violence of their times.
Henry Moore continued working on the forms developed for Spanish Prisoner which evolved into his
wartime sculpture The Helmet ,1939-40. During the Blitz he sketched Londoners sheltering from
the bombing in the underground. In a bid to bolster public moral the Shelter Drawings were displayed
at the National Gallery in London where they were seen by many as an expression of the common
tragedy of war.
Henry Moore along with other artists such as Graham Sutherland, John Piper, Paul Nash, Eric Ravillious,
Duncan Grant and David Bomberg worked with the War Artists’ Advisory Committee as official war
artists during the Second World War. As Goya showed in his etchings, artists are able to communicate
the implicit as well as the explicit; they can convey attitudes and values. The existence of war artists
was an acknowledgement that art can represent what the camera cannot interpret.
The American artist RB Kitaj had been a regular visitor to Catalonia in the 1960s and 1970s and created
a series of paintings and prints investigating themes and subjects from the Civil War, such as his painting
La Pasionaria of the Republican heroine and orator Dolores Ibárruri whose slogan ‘¡No Pasarán!’ (‘They
Shall Not Pass’) had become famous after the Battle of Madrid.
The painting Go and Get Killed Comrade, We Need a Byron in the Movement from the series: Mahler
Becomes Politics, Beisbol (1964-67) is a reference to the apocryphal story that leader of the British
Communist Party Harry Pollitt, encouraging Stephen Spender to join the International Brigades, told him
‘to go and get killed; we need a Byron in the movement’. Kitaj also produced a number of screenprints
featuring the book jackets published during the Spanish Civil War in the series In Our Time: Covers for a
Small Library After the Life for the Most Part (1969–70).
In the late 1980s abstract artist Terry Frost created a suite of etchings in response to the celebrated
poetry of Federico García Lorca who was killed by pro-Franco militias during the early Nationalist
uprisings in Granada in 1936. Other artists whose work responds to the events of the conflict include
Sean Scully, Ron King and Tom Phillips.
22
6: The Spanish Civil War as an Inspiration to
Later Artists
RB Kitaj, Junta, 1962
Oil and collage on canvas 91 x 213cm
Private Collection
In the 1960s Kitaj created several paintings in a style indebted to Surrealism which address his interest
in modern history, politics and culture. These complex works make associative connections between
historical figures, stories and events from different eras. Kitaj was strongly influenced by visiting
Catalonia and had a deep interest in the revolutionary politics of the Spanish Civil War. He drew on a
range of cultural sources from Old Master paintings to modern literature, films by directors such as John
Ford and Alfred Hitchcock, and newspaper reports. Moving beyond documenting the historical situation,
his paintings often include imaginary figures, reflecting his belief that painters should be able to make up
characters in the same way as novelists.
Commentator Adrian Hamilton suggests that the rootlessness of Kitaj early years ‘gives his art a quality
that is at once fragmentary but also intense, at the same time ambiguous and emphatic. It is the art
always of the outsider, standing back, looking on. But it is also a painting fiercely engaged, predicated
on the belief that painting on its own could not communicate the fractured nature of 20th-century
violence and disharmony’.
• To the left of Durruti is a
Key elements
• In the enigmatic Junta, Kitaj creates an imaginary assembly of
characters; a benign revolutionary government.
• Junta was painted partly in Catalonia in the summer of 1962
and grew out of an interest in the old anarchists Kitaj had been
introduced to during his stay.
• The fifth panel to the far right is based on the anarchist leader
Buenaventura Durruti who died in the Spanish Civil War. Behind
him you can see his car, a Packard, which he was getting into
when he was killed.
23
bomb hidden in flowers.
This is a reference to the
assassination attempt on
the wedding cortege of King
Alfonso XIII by anarchist
Mateo Morral in 1906,
which was witnessed by
Ezra Pound. Above is a
doppelganger symbolising
ideological compromise in
United Fronts, which Kitaj
said were ‘often doomed to
split apart or murder each
other in the name of some
purity or other.’
• In the 1963 catalogue of
his first solo exhibition, Kitaj
added the following caption
to the painting:
(from left to right) What Thou Lovest Well
Remains, the Rest is Dross
(a quote from Ezra Pound)
Born in Despotic
Dan Chatterton at Home
24
References and Connections
Introduction
Graham Bell (1910 – 1943) A painter of
portraits, landscape and still life. As a journalist
during the Spanish Civil War years he contributed
to the New Statesman and published The Artist
and His Public, 1939. He was associated with
the realist Euston Road School from 1937 and
joined the AIA.
Albert Camus (1913 - 1960) born in French
Algeria to a Pied-Noir family. He was an author,
journalist, and philosopher. In 1957 he was
awarded the Nobel Prize for literature ‘for his
important literary production, which with clearsighted earnestness illuminates the problems of
the human conscience in our times.’
Picture Post A pioneering photojournalist
magazine published in Britain from 1938 to
1957. Its vast collection of photographs and
negatives became the Hulton Picture Library
after the Second World War.
Oswald Mosley (1896 - 1980) An English
politician who associated closely with Nazi
Germany, known principally as the founder of the
British Union of Fascists (BUF)
Joan Miró (1893 – 1983) Catalan Spanish
painter, sculptor and ceramicist born in Barcelona.
Although associated with the surrealists his
work is characterized by experimentation and
non-objectivity rather than any specific style. In
1937 the Republican government commissioned
him to paint the mural, The Reaper, for the
Spanish Republican Pavilion at the 1937 Paris
Exhibition, at which point Miró’s work became
more politically charged.
AIA - Artists International Association
Formed in 1933 by a group of left-wing artists.
The prime focus was initially propaganda,
reflecting the fact that the core members were
committed communists. In their first published
statement in 1934 the AIA declared that it was
their aim to mobilise ‘the International Unity of
Artists Against Imperialist War on the Soviet
Union, Fascism and Colonial Oppression’.
Josep Renau (1907 - 1982) Born in Valencia,
Spain. A grand pioneer of graphic design,
influenced by Russian Constructivism and the
political photomontage of John Heartfield.
In 1936 he was named Director General of
Fine Arts for the Republican government and
commissioned Picasso to create a mural for
the Paris exhibition 1937. He believed in the
potential of poster art to express ideals of
equality, progress and solidarity.
Art of Political Protest
Quentin Bell (1910 - 1996) Painter, sculptor,
potter, art historian and writer. Studied painting
in Paris, and worked through a variety of styles,
including abstraction and Surrealism. In the 1930s
his political inclinations directed him towards a
more socially committed form of realism and the
Euston Road School. He was the son of Clive and
Vanessa Bell, elder brother of Julian Bell who died
in the Civil War, and nephew of Virginia Woolf.
Spanish Pavilion May - Nov 1937 One of
the Republican government’s most significant
projects in promoting their cause abroad was the
Spanish Pavilion at the World’s Fair (Exposition
Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la
Vie Moderne) in Paris in 1937. It was seen as
an opportunity to gain economic and political
support in the light of non-intervention policies
of the majority of European countries. With the
participation of prominent artists such as Miró,
Calder and Picasso the pavilion was assured to
draw public attention and criticism. It also featured
the posters and photomontage of Josep Renau.
May Day Originally a pagan festival for Spring,
May Day became associated with the working
classes and socialism in the 1890s. It is now an
International Workers holiday marked by marches
and demonstrations for worker’s and human
rights. May Day was banned in Spain during the
Franco dictatorship.
F.E. McWilliam (1909 -1992) Irish Sculptor.
Trained in Belfast and London. During the years of
the Spanish Civil War he became associated with
the British Surrealist Group.
25
References and Connections
1: The Last Great Cause : British Support
for Spain
Major Attlee Company Clement Richard Attlee
was leader of the Labour Party from 1935, in
opposition to Neville Chamberlain, and a supporter
of the International Brigade whose Number 1
Company was named the ‘Major Attlee Company’
in his honour. Attlee led Labour to win a huge
majority in the 1945 post-war general election.
David Bomberg (1890 - 1957) Bomberg had
served at the Front during World War I. In the
years that followed he turned away from the
mechanistic forms of abstract art that had come
to be associated with the destructive forces of
war and sought more conventional means of
representation. In 1929 he visited Spain and
subsequently lived with his family in various
locations, first in Toledo, then Ronda (Andalusia),
Cuenca and Asturias where he painted landscapes
and portraits. In 1935 as the conflict in Spain
broke out he took his family back to England.
Battle at Calaceite 31 March 1938. The
British Battalion were ambushed at Calaceite
by an Italian expeditionary force (Corpo
Truppe Volontarie) sent to Spain to support
Franco’s Nationalist forces. Over one hundred
International Brigade volunteers were captured,
including Clive Branson, and were taken to a
prison camp near Burgos in northern Spain.
Edward Burra (1905 – 1976) Burra was a
frequent visitor to Spain in the 1930s and was
impressed by all aspects of its culture. He was
deeply affected by the outbreak of the Civil
War and from 1935 began to paint images that
touched on the violence and sense of social
unease in Spain in works such as The Torturers.
Although Burra was not overtly political, he
embraced dark subject matter and peopled his
paintings with haunting hooded figures, the
macabre and grotesque.
Clive Branson: poems
In the Camp
The storm has cleared the air but not barbed wire.
Here we can bask in the sun / Should our eyes have
forgotten / Pointed at by the guard’s bayonet.
We’re like young trees set / On a wide landscape
and mountain / In a picture for ever certain.
Clouds pass and fine weather / and with them the
liberty we long for.
Clive Branson: pencil studies In August
1938, at the request of the prison authorities
at Palencia, Branson sketched pencil portraits
of his fellow British prisoners. Each is dated and
annotated with the name of the soldier and their
home address (sometimes pseudonyms and fake
addresses were given). Invariably they depict the
sitter in profile, reading, or lost in their thoughts.
Paul Robeson (1898 -1976) An American singer
and actor, blacklisted during the McCarthy era for
his communist association and criticism of the US
government. He addressed the ‘Spain and Culture’
rally at the Royal Albert Hall in June 1937, and
contributed to the magazine Left Review.
Vanessa Bell (1879 – 1961) Painter, designer
and member of the Bloomsbury Group. Like
many artists of her generation her work became
less abstract and more naturalistic following the
First World War. Vanessa had two sons with
her husband Clive Bell; Julian who was killed in
the Civil War, and the painter and art historian
Quentin. Vanessa’s sister was Virginia Woolf.
Co-operative News In continuous publication
since 1871 making it the oldest Co-operative
newspaper in the world. It was the first
newspaper conducted by co-operators rather
than for them.
Daily Worker The newspaper was founded
in 1930 as the voice of the Communist Party
of Great Britain. In 1966 it was renamed the
Morning Star.
Bloomsbury Group Influential group of artists,
writers, and intellectuals who were united by
their belief in the importance of the arts. Key
members included Virginia Woolf, Duncan Grant,
Vanessa Bell and E. M. Forster.
26
References and Connections
2: We Ask Your Attention: Surrealists and
the Avant-garde
requisitioned by the Government. Zervos was
joined by British Surrealist artist Roland Penrose,
and together they toured heritage sites in
Catalonia from October to December 1936.
Herbert Read (1893 - 1968) Poet, historian
of ceramics and stained glass, and literary critic.
In 1938 Read published his book Poetry and
Anarchism in which he wrote of his belief that,
‘In Spain, and almost only in Spain, there still
lives a spirit to resist the bureaucratic tyranny
of the State and the intellectual intolerance of
all doctrinaires. For that reasons all poets must
follow the course of this struggle with open and
passionate partisanship’.
Cultural vandalism The fate of Spain’s cultural
heritage during the conflict was of great concern
both within and outside Spain. During the
opening months of the Spanish Civil War reports
from the Nationalist side claimed the destruction
and seizure of churches, private homes and
artistic treasures in anti-clerical actions by
revolutionary militias. In order to prevent cultural
vandalism and emphasise the importance of
Spain’s heritage, the Republican government
established a Council for the Confiscation and
Protection of Artistic Treasures – headed by the
painter Don Timoteo Pérez Rubio.
David Gascoyne (1916 - 2001) Surrealist
Poet. Gascoyne joined the Communist Party
of Great Britain in 1936 and then travelled
to Spain. In Barcelona he worked for the
Propaganda Ministry translating news bulletins
during the day and broadcasting them in English
every evening at 6 o’clock.
Robert Capa (1913 - 1954) Hungarian war
photographer, photojournalist and co-founder
of Magnum photos. From 1936 to 1939, Capa
worked in Spain, photographing the Spanish
Civil War. He became known globally for the
iconic photo The Falling Soldier, 1939 – an
image that has since been the subject of much
scholarly research and controversy. Many of
Capa’s photographs of the Spanish Civil War were
presumed lost until they resurfaced in Mexico
City in the late 1990s.
Roland Penrose (1900 - 1984) Artist and
Poet. With Herbert Read and David Gascoyne
he organised the 1936 International Surrealist
Exhibition in London, which featured a remarkable
cross-section of surrealist art by International
and British artists. That same year he formed a
close and long-lasting friendship with Picasso and
was instrumental in bringing Guernica to Britain.
Throughout the Spanish conflict he remained
at the forefront of initiatives to raise funds for
Spanish relief.
Paul Éluard (1895 - 1952) Avant-garde French
poet and key figure in the Surrealist movement.
Éluard included among his close friends such
visual artists as Picasso, Miró, Tanguy, and Dali.
It was during a visit to Paul Eluard and his wife’s
home in France in 1936 that Roland Penrose met
Pablo Picasso and Christian Zervos.
Non-intervention policy Britain signed a
Non-Intervention Agreement, together with 24
other nations, in August 1936. Due to a FrancoBritish arms embargo the Spanish Republic could
only purchase arms from the Soviet Union,
yet large amounts of weapons, supplies and
troops were provided to General Franco and his
Nationalist rebels by Nazi Germany and fascist
Italy, escalating the situation from a civil war to a
conflict with an international dimension.
Christian Zervos (1889 - 1970) Editor of the
French art journal Cahiers d’Art. In 1936 Zervos
was invited by the head of the Generalitat’s
Propaganda Commissariat in Barcelona, to collect
material for a new book on Catalan art. The
book was to be based on works which had been
discovered shortly after the outbreak of the
War, in churches and cathedrals, and in houses
Henry Moore (1898 - 1986) Avant-garde
English sculptor and artist. Moore was on the
organising committee for the International
Surrealist Exhibition in London 1936, in which he
also exhibited. He designed the British Surrealist
Group’s broadsheet We Ask Your Attention and
signed their ‘Declaration on Spain’. While Moore’s
distinctive style was influenced by the surrealists
27
References and Connections
it also combined figurative and abstract elements.
His source of inspiration was the human body, its
forms and postures.
removed more than 500 of the greatest artistic
treasures of the Prado and other museums to the
Republican capital of Valencia, and subsequently
to the Palace of the League of Nations in Geneva.
In 1939 he was forced to flee to exile in Geneva
and later to Brazil.
Atelier 17 In 1927, SW Hayter opened a print
studio/workshop in Paris which, in 1933, moved
to No. 17, Rue Campagne-Première, where it
became internationally known as the legendary
Atelier 17. It was an immensely influential centre
of experimentation in printmaking techniques
and became a key meeting point for avant-garde
artists in the 30s. Two portfolios Solidarité and
Fraternité including work by an international
cross-section of artists were produced by SW
Hayter at Atelier 17 in support of the Spanish
Civil War relief.
Jusepe de Ribera (1591 – 1652) A Spanish
tenebrist painter and printmaker. The oldest of
the ‘Spanish Masters’. He spent most of his life
in Naples (a Spanish territory) and is generally
considered to be a follower of Caravaggio. He
exerted an enormous influence on Baroque art, in
Spain as well as in the rest of Europe.
Diego Velázquez (1599–1660) The leading
artist in the court of King Philip IV and one of
the most important painters of the Spanish
Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist
of the contemporary Baroque period and
important as a portrait artist. Described by
the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York as,
‘the most admired—perhaps the greatest—
European painter who ever lived. He possessed
a miraculous gift for conveying a sense of truth’.
His masterpiece Las Meninas, 1656, was one
of his final works. He has been an inspiration for
European artists since the nineteenth century and
many modern painters such as Picasso, Dali and
Bacon have recreated his paintings.
Siege of Numantia A tragedy by Cervantes circa
1582 which recounts the fall of the Spanish city
of Numantia on the banks of the Douro (Duero),
at the hands of the Romans in 133 BC. It was
a theme that that resonated with the forces at
work in the Spanish Civil War. Cervantes’ play
includes the allegorical figures of Spain, the river
goddess Douro, War, Pestilence, Hunger, Fame.
At the end, Fame announces the future glory
of Spain, a great power that will rise out of the
ashes of Numantia like the phoenix.
3: Guernica and the Threat of Bombing
Francisco de Zurbarán (1598 – 1664)
Zurbarán painted mostly for Spanish religious
orders. Many of these theologically inspired
paintings are simple and direct, yet spiritually and
emotionally compelling; works that display his
naturalistic style, as well as his skilled use of light
and shadow. They follow Caravaggio’s realistic use
of chiaroscuro and tenebrism. After considerable
success his style fell out of favour in comparison to
sentimental religiosity of the younger Murillo.
Guernica The annihilation of the ancient
Basque capital of Guernica in 1937 has come to
characterise the suffering of innocent civilians
resulting from modern warfare. The undefended
town was not a military target and the attack
was undoubtedly intended to intimidate
the civilian population and demoralise the
Republicans, for whom the Basque region was
a stronghold. The impact was felt throughout
the world as the dreadful realities of aerial
bombardment became known.
Bartolome Esteban Murillo (1617 -1682)
A Spanish baroque painter, best known for his
religious works and realistic depictions of the
everyday life of his times. Murillo’s paintings
were considered the triumph of the Spanish
Baroque and became known throughout
Europe. His paintings bridge the dark drama and
sometimes ascetic simplicity of Spain’s early
Don Timoteo Pérez Rubio (1896 - 1977)
With the onset of the Civil War Pérez Rubio
undertook to protect the artworks housed in the
Prado museum, convents and palaces of Madrid.
During the Nationalist bombing campaign
against the city in November 1936 Pérez Rubio
28
References and Connections
Baroque artists such as Zurbarán, and the fanciful
sensuality of the approaching Rococo era.
6: The Spanish Civil War as an Inspiration
to Artists
Euston Road School Formed in 1938, this
was a left-wing modern realist group of artists
who taught at or graduated from the School
of Painting and Drawing in Euston Road,
London. Rebelling against avant-garde art,
they proclaimed the supremacy of portraying
traditional subjects in a realist manner, to make
art more understandable and socially relevant.
Members of the school included Graham Bell,
William Coldstream, Lawrence Gowing, Rodrigo
Moynihan, Victor Pasmore and Claude Rogers.
Blitz Refers to the period of sustained strategic
bombing of the United Kingdom by Germany
during the Second World War. Between
September 1940 and May 1941 London was
subjected to 71 attacks. Images of Londoners
sheltering in the Underground were the recorded
in drawings by Henry Moore.
Terry Frost (1915 - 2003) An abstract painter
and Royal Academician. As a POW interned at
Stalag 383 in Bavaria he met the artist Adrian
Heath who encouraged his painting. He started
studying art at Camberwell School of Art when
he returned from the war and became involved in
the artistic community at St Ives. His interest in
Spain led him to illustrate 11 Poems of Federico
Garcia Lorca (1989).
5: Spanish Refugees and Prisoners
National Joint Committee for Spanish Relief
A nominally non-partisan and largely pacifist
organisation set up in December 1936 as a result
of a visit by an all-Party group of MPs to Madrid.
The committee was formed with the object of
preventing over-lapping in appeals, of facilitating
the allocation of funds and of effecting
economies in the despatch of goods to Spain.
It was chaired by Conservative MP Katherine
Stewart Murray, Duchess of Atholl.
Sean Scully (b.1945) Irish-American painter
and printmaker. Scully has gained international
prominence as one of the most admired abstract
painters, fusing the conventions of European
painting with the distinct character of American
abstraction. In 1994 he established a studio in
Barcelona. In 2003 he created a set of etchings
dedicated to Federico García Lorca .
Michael Rothenstein (1908 -1993) An English
printmaker, painter and art teacher. Raised within
a comfortable artistic household environment
where Augustus John, Wyndham Lewis, Edward
Burra, Stanley Spencer, David Jones, Edwin
Lutyens and the young Henry Moore were
frequent visitors. His work Spanish Refugees
was influenced by Goya and the photographs of
Robert Capa.
Altamira caves In 1879 prehistoric paintings
and drawings were discovered in the caves of
Altamira in Spain. They represented the apogee
of Paleolithic cave art that had developed across
Europe, from the Urals to the Iberian Peninusula
from 35,000 to 11,000 BC. The sophistication
of these paintings challenged presumptions held
by ‘civilised’ societies that prehistoric man did not
have the intellectual capacity to produce any kind
of artistic expression.
29
Notes
30
Notes
31
Written by Lesley Crewdson
based on research by Simon Martin, Artistic Director
Designed by Louise Bristow
Natalie Franklin, Learning Programme Manager
[email protected], 01243 770839
Telephone 01243 774557
[email protected]
www.pallant.org.uk
9 North Pallant, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 1TJ
32