London 2009
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Picasso and Politics: The Charnel House
The Charnel House article has moved to a NEW PAGE - because there's so much material emerging; please see The Charnel House - with the Lynda Morris audio clip.
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International Brigades annual commemoration, Jubilee Gardens: London 2009
Veterans, members and friends of the International Brigades Memorial Trust met at Jubilee Gardens on London's Southbank on 4th July 2009 to commemorate the men and women from all round the world who went to the aid of the Spanish Republican Government and fought against fascism in 1936, 37 and 38.
Speakers included the Carles Casajuana the Spanish ambassador, Xavier Solano, The Head of the Catalonian Delgation in London, Robert Elms writer and broadcaster and representatives from Sweden, USA, Germany and of the Jewish volunteers.
A highlight of the year was on 9th June when the Spanish ambassador, Carles Casajuana, presented the remaining veterans from Britain and Ireland with Spanish passports in a ceremony at the Spanish Embassy in London. He said the volunteers had made an, "... enormous act of generosity … They came to Spain to fight against fascism and they gave up their comfortable lives here to go to a foreign land because of their ideals."
Four Brigaders who died during the year were remembered: Rosaline Ross a who served in the Medical Units; Jack Jones the Union leader and IBMT President, Bernard McKenna from Manchester and Bob Doyle from Dublin, Ireland. "Salud!"
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Mother's Scrapbook
Rodney Bickerstaff brought along some scrapbooks his mother had kept in the late nineteen thirties. They included newspaper cuttings of dispatches posted by Sam Lesser after he was wounded at Lopera and was working for the 'free media' in Barcelona. This was the first time that Sam had ever seen some of the articles in printed form. A headline from the opened page reads, "They Died For Liberty: Their Fight Goes On." ... Photo: copyright M. Mateer
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Open forum at the Whitechapel Gallery: July 2009
Following the Jubilee Gardens commemoration about fifty people gathered at the Whitechapel Gallery in East London to hold a meeting in front of the tapestry version of Guernica which is on loan from the UN building in New York as part of the artist Goshka Maguca's installation "The Nature of the Beast".
Gathered round the the circular display case in the centre of the room comrades recalled their memories about the Civil War and its aftermath in Spain and about the 1930's in Britain and the International Brigades. The round table is constructed as a display case and is a reminder of both the original courtyard setting in the Spanish pavilion with its circular fountain where "Guernica" was first shown in 1936 and of the round table in the UN's Security Council chamber.
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The unrehearsed contributions by colleagues opened up a series of themes, one speaker often adding to or building on a previous speaker's memory. From a reminder that the Battle of Cable Street took place right outside the Whitechapel Gallery where the group was gathered to memories of collecting 'Aid for Spain' in 36 - 38. One speaker's husband had seen the original Picasso at Whitechapel which became an image of great meaning to him and which, as an eldery man, - with echoes of the work of Norman King's protest workshops in the 30's - he literally drew from to make posters for an Iraq anti-war protest sixty years later. For another a father's visit to the Spanish Pavilion in Paris in 1937 where Guernica was displayed became the 'workround' to circumvent British government restrictions - using the old 'Foreign Enlistment Act' of 1870 - on those trying to volunteer for the International Brigades.
Several speakers mentioned the 'silence' that lasted throughout the Franco regime - a generation or more - in Spain about the events of the 30's and the aftermath to the Civil War. It was noted that school histories in Spain had often mis-represented the facts during this period - the Russians bombed Guernica! One speaker spoke movingly and at length about the reactions in Spain today as mass graves have begun to be opened and how, while history is eventually being established, the personal and community situation can be "very, very uncomfortable"
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Goshka Maguca hoped that her installation and the re-appearance of 'Guernica' at the Whitechapel might, "encourage people ... to use the round table for meetings and discussions on subjects that are important to them, with 'Guernica' once again the backdrop."
For a brief hour on 4th July 2009 colleagues of the IBMT brought the gallery space alive with crystal-clear memories of the 30's, the Spanish Civil War and the International Brigades expressed through a continuing committment to record memories, develop the historical record and maintain the ideals of the volunteers and their supporters in the face of the challenges to truth, peace and democracy today.
Image: Goshka Macuga at the Symposium. Photo Marshall Mateer
The sound clips below are taken from the video record of the event. Click the arrows to play.
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"... the 'Battle of Cable Street' took place outside this door ..."
"May I also just remind you, that you're sitting in this room - (in the Whitechapel Gallery) - that the most famous picture of the 'Battle of Cable Street' actually took place right outside this door. If you look outside at 'Old Gardner's Corner' where the dockers stopped all the transport from moving in Whitechapel ..."
News film of the 'Battle of Cable Street'.
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"... people didn't listen ..."
Vivien Pixner described how people collected aid for the Republican government and the Spanish people and how the British navy blockaded food and supplies getting to Spain. Penny continued by remembering how she and her friends had warned of the dangers of fascist aggression that they, correctly, believed would inevitably engulf Britain.
"We distributed leaflets trying to point out that if the British government didn't do something ... "
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"... this picture meant so much ..."
Vivien's description of groundroots activities to raise money and support for Republican Spain reminded Bella Goldstein of her husband and how he had seen Picasso's 'Guernica' at the Whitechapel - (it was displayed there in 1938/39) - and how much it had meant to him throughout his life.
... "It reminded me of those sort of activities that were going on in towns all over the country ..."
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"... buy a return ticket to Paris ..."
In 1937 Picasso's 'Guernica' was part of the exhibition in the Spanish Pavilion in the Paris World Fair. Jim Jump recalls the instructions his father was given when he set out from England to join the International Brigades to get around the restrictive measures imposed by the British Government.
"... and he'd been told then that the British Government was enforcing the 'Foreign Enlistment Act' ..."
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"... and it is very, very uncomfortable ... "
From her experience interviewing people in Spain, Lala Isla described the consequences - personal, family, community and national - of the process of opening the mass graves after the 'years of silence': memories to unearth; stories to be told; relationships to be re-assessed and history finally written.
One of her stories began, "And they found an earing ... and they continued digging ... "
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'na-mara'
Na-mara' - Paul McNarama and Rob Gracia - concluded the evening playing "Anada pa' Julia", based on an old melody from Astrurias, and then "Only for Three Months" the story of the 4,000 child refugees who came to England from Bilbao in May 1937, to escape the bombing and starvation following the carpet bombing of Guernica by Franco's fascist forces. Earlier Penny Feiwel had described the British navy's blockade of humanitarian supplies getting to Northern Spain.
"Anada pa' Julia": by Javier Tejedor arranged for mandolin and guitar by Rob Garcia.
"Only for Three Months": music by Javier Tejedor and words by Paul McNamara.
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"Only Three Months" - video
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Basque Children - Pathe newsreel
Old Pathe newsreel from 1937 describes the landing of the 4000 Basque children from the liner 'Havana' at Southampton and the camp - it was tents - set up to receive them. You can see, as na-mara's sopng describes, the "sally army" volunteers in their bonnets. The commentary gives an interesting, if not wholly accurate, 'official-style' interpretation of the events in Spain and the Basque country; describes the children's suffering in Guernica-style imagery; makes a general appeal to human values in caring for children; and finally takes the opportunity - as British newsreels of the time often did - to promote Britain as a safe haven for the oppressed.
:: See the film in the British Pathe film archive Tragedy of Civil War, 1937 - this is a direct link to the film.
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Whitechapel Symposium on 'Guernica': September 2009
On 12th September a day-long symposium was led by the poet Michael Rosen to explore the contexts and issues surrounding the exhibition of Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ at the Whitechapel in 1939 and the consequences for today. After Michael Rosen personal memories of growing up in the East End, the event began with Professor Paul Preston, author of many books on the Spanish Civil War, describing the political context of the bombing of Guernica and discussing the role of the press, and in particular of George Steer whose syndicated and much quoted report of the results of the bombing has become iconic is in its own right; “Throughout the night houses were falling until the streets became long heaps of red impenetrable debris."(Times 1937) Questions from the floor raised the issue of current activism in Northern Spain, in particular the status of ETA and the impact of 'terrorism' by small groups.
Mike Gonzales who was able to ‘draw’ his analysis of Picasso’s painting using his hands to trace over the great tapestry behind him. The question of the politics surrounding the choice of Picasso to paint the mural for the Spanish Pavilion when he didn’t work within a socialist-realist style was a continuing topic of interest through the day.
In conversation with Michael Rosen, Alice Hitchen recalled her personal memories of the 1930s: “I remember the chalking; going out at night and chalking the pavements with ‘No Pasarán”. Lynda Morris outlined her study of Picasso’s political concerns which continued after the Spanish Civil War period using a slide-show of many of his post-Guernica paintings including his painting about the Holocaust, ‘The Charnel House’ which will be on show later this year in Liverpool Tate and which she thinks may be based on a photograph of a civil war-damaged Spanish family home. And finished by discussing Picasso’s reworking of Velázquez ‘Las Meninas’ in one of which she deduced from comments in Picasso’s letters and papers - which she had recently had access to - that the use of the colours red and blue in one version were a coded reference the Franco regime.
Nayia Yiakoumaki of the Whitechapel discussed the archiving of the materials.
Tom Buchanan discussed the impact in Britain of the bombing of Guernica and its representations in the press and in newsreels. He showed a flickering few minutes of moving grey images - the only film record of Clement Atlee opening the Picasso Guernica exhibition at the Whitechapel; film from 1938 projecting the event onto the walls of the same gallery 70 years later, with Picasso’s work attending both.
Valentine Cunningham introduced the flood of poetry born of the bombings of Guernica and Madrid. He also discussed Picasso’s satirical etching sequence ‘The Dream and Lie of Franco’ which has an accompanying poem by the artist.
During the afternoon there were readings of poetry by English and Spanish writers a moving dual reading, in Spanish and English, of a Pablo Neruda poem. ‘I’m Explaining a Few Things’.
An open question and answer session followed with International Brigader and IBMT president, Sam Lesser, who described his experiences as boy growing up in the East End in the 1930’s and then as a International Brigader, fighting in Madrid, and later wounded at Lopera. He continued to support the Republican cause working for the free radio before returning to Britain where he worked as journalist. In his closing remark Sam reminded us that icons are born of and accumulate their meanings from reality: “We were is Spain. We didn’t see the painting, but we saw the dead and wounded on the ground as Picasso displayed them there …” and he nodded his head towards the great mass of the tapestry at the end of the gallery.
The day concluded with 30 participants from the symposium taking part in "Anti-Fascist Footprints" - a guided walk led by David Rosenberg - from the Whitechapel Gallery/Gardiners Corner to the Cable Street mural. the tour traced the steps of those who challenged Mosley's blackshirts in the 1930's and those like Charlie Goodman, Jackie Shaw, Sam Masters and Nat Cohen who went from the East End to fight in Spain. There is a plaque commemorating local people who went to fight in the International Brigades round the corner from the mural.
Goshka Maguca hoped that her installation might, "encourage people ... to use the round table for meetings and discussions with 'Guernica' once again the backdrop." The question of how can art can face of the challenges to peace and democracy today is as pertinent today as it was in 1938 when the Whitechapel opened it’s doors for the people of the East End to see the Guernica mural: and we hear today, as then, through the media, the “gritos de niños”. For some all-too brief moments on 4th July 2009 and the 12th September colleagues of the IBMT and speakers at the symposium brought the gallery space alive with the spirit of inquiry, the strength of memory and an expression of continuing commitment to develop the historical record and maintain the ideals of the volunteers from around the world who fought in Spain.
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"...leafleting, chalking, .. I remember the chalking ..." Alice Hitchin recalls action against facism in the 1930s
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Sam Lessor remembers the threat to Britain: "Save Spain, Save Peace, Save Britain..."
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About Guernica, Picasso and the Whitechapel
:: More about Guernica - the bombing of Guernica, Picasso's painting, the tapestries, how the painting has been used as an image of protest and comment ever since and the Whitechapel exhibitions of 1939 and 2009.
:: In the video above na-mara are performing in front of the UN Guernica tapestry and directly behind them is the figure of the twisting, shrieking horse. One version of why the tapestry was covered up for Colin Powell's speech about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq made at the UN in 2003, was that the rear end of a horse was considered an inappropriate backdrop for such grave pronouncements. More on why Guernica was covered up at the UN ...
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Acknowledgements
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About, copyrights and feedback
:: This material about London 2009 commemoration, the IBMT Whitechapel Gallery open forum and the Michael Roseen Symposium is written and collated by Marshall Mateer.
:: The images, text, video clips and sound clips are copyright Marshall Mateer. The video clips are taken from a full video record of the events of both days.
Page first published on 21st July 2009: updated 1st September with the audio clips. Further update February 2010 with the Symposium material. Charnel House article added 20th May 2010 A short version of the text of the Whitechapel meetings was published in the IBMT Newsletter Issue 25, New Year 2010. See the newsletter section of the International Brigades Memorial Trust website.
:: If you have any feedback please contact me at info@shapesoftime.net
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Shapes of Time
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Spanish Civil War
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