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Conflict and Conscience: British Artists and The Spanish Civil War

Introduction

The 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.

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.

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,

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 : ‘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.’

Unknown Help Spain, 1937, Off-set lithograph on paper, 75.5 x 49.2cm, Courtesy of the People’s History Museum

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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 twentieth-century. 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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

Quentin Bell, May Day Procession 1937 with Banners

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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.

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 revolutionary-style 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.

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

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.

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.

Frank Brangwyn, For the relief of Women and Children in Spain, 1937, Leicestershire County Council, Artworks Collection

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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.

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.

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.

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.

Ceri Richards and Sam Haile painting a hoarding in London, February 1939, Black and white photograph, The Murray Family Collection

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’

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.

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The 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 anti-clerical 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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Clive Branson, Demonstration In Battersea, 1939Oil on canvas 40x 60cmDedicated 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 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.

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 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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Amongst 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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S.W. Hayter, Paysage Anthropophage (Man-eating landscape), 1937Oil 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 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.

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.’

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On 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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Pablo Picasso, Weeping Woman (Femme en pleurs), 26 October 1937 Oil on canvasTate. 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.

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.

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.

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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

Once 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.

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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 1863Etching, burnished aquatint and drypoint on wove paper. 17.4 x 12.8. Lent by David Scrase

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The composition shows the horrors produced by hunger, the fragility of life and loneliness.

The body of the woman is carried by three men. You can almost feel the limp weight of the woman’s body and the physical tension in the bodies of the men.

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.

Together the group form an arc that accentuates the idea of beginning and end, life and death.

In the background you can just make out the body of another victim.

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Nada. Ello dirá (Nothing - The event will tell), 1810-1820, Published 1863Etching, 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.

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Key elementsA 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.

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.

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The 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 Stewart-Murray, 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 non-intervention, 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.

5: Helping them to forget: Spanish Refugees and Prisoners

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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.’

The human power of Spanish Prisoner comes from the submissive angle of the jaw and the sorrowful eyes that look out from the visor-like 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.

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5: Helping them to forget: Spanish Refugees and Prisoners

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In 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.

6: The Spanish Civil War as an Inspiration to Later Artists

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RB Kitaj, Junta, 1962Oil and collage on canvas 91 x 213cmPrivate 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’.

6: The Spanish Civil War as an Inspiration to Later Artists

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.

To the left of Durruti is a 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 DespoticDan Chatterton at Home

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References and ConnectionsIntroduction

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 clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times.’

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)

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’.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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References and Connections1: The Last Great Cause : British Support for Spain

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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Clive Branson: poemsIn the CampThe 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.

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.

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References and Connections2: We Ask Your Attention: Surrealists and the Avant-garde

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’.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Non-intervention policy Britain signed a Non-Intervention Agreement, together with 24 other nations, in August 1936. Due to a Franco-British 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.

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

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it also combined figurative and abstract elements. His source of inspiration was the human body, its forms and postures. 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.

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 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.

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

References and Connectionsremoved 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.

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.

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.

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

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Baroque artists such as Zurbarán, and the fanciful sensuality of the approaching Rococo era.

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.

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.

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.

6: The Spanish Civil War as an Inspiration to Artists

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).

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 .

References and Connections

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Written by Lesley Crewdsonbased on research by Simon Martin, Artistic Director Designed by Louise Bristow

Natalie Franklin, Learning Programme Managern.franklin@pallant.org.uk, 01243 770839

Telephone 01243 774557info@pallant.org.ukwww.pallant.org.uk9 North Pallant, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 1TJ