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 Shouts From The WallThese are the posters that woke up the world about the conflict in Spain. This national art exhibit is currently traveling the country. Next stop: USF's Contemporary Art Museum. IT WAS VERY HARD TO GET IT into Tampa," confides Fraser Ottanelli., a USF History professor. Ottanelli is talking about "Shouts from the Wall," an exhibit of Spanish Civil War posters being shown at major art galleries and museums throughout the country. These 35 color posters created by Spanish artists were brought back to the United States after the war by surviving American volunteers who served in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Ottanelli is one of four executive board members of the Abraham Lincoln Archives (ALBA), the most comprehensive historical archive documenting America's involvement in the Spanish Civil War that is permanently housed at Brandeis University. The "Shouts from the Wall" posters are part of this collection. The art show opened on June 1 [1997] at New York's Puffin Gallery, the first stop in its nationwide tour. The complete exhibit includes the 35 aforementioned posters and 25 black and white documentary photographs. The wall text opens with eloquent commentary by some of the famous American writers who traveled to Spain during the war-including Ernest Hemingway and Langston Hughes- and proceeds to display unpublished battlefield letters written by the American volunteers themselves.
Ottanelli made some phone calls. He called Maura Barrios, with USF's Latin American Caribbean Studies program. "She said, 'This is the story of my parents."' Barrios made some phone calls and "people started coming out of the woodwork. The moment the community got involved, everything started to happen." Ottanelli's push to bring the "Shouts from the Wall" exhibit to town was the genesis of the USF-Ybor City Spanish Civil War Project partnership - a collage of special events commemorating the Spanish Civil War. In addition to the poster show, the Salvador Dali museum in St. Petersburg will exhibit the documentary photography segment of the ALBA exhibit, "The Aura of the Cause: A Photo Album for North American Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War," which includes the work of Robert Capa. The photo exhibit will run concurrently with the poster exhibit from November 8 [1997] to January 1 [1998]. Other highlights of USF's Spanish Civil War project include art and history lectures sponsored by the College of Fine Arts, the History department and the University Lecture Series; live performances artifact exhibit at the Centro Asturiano in Ybor City. Many of these materials will later be housed at the USF Library's Special Collections. The Library and the Contemporary Art Museum both have World Wide Web sites to view the collection. A complete listing of these events can be found in the winter calendar on Pages 44-45. Ottanelli recalls the outpouring of letters, impassioned speeches and dollars from the Ybor community to support this joint project. Says Ottanelli: "This is their story. This is who they are. This is a defining moment for Tampa." "Shouts from the Wall," the Spanish Civil War poster exhibit, will be on display 'I the Contemporary Art Museum's cast gallery from November 10 through December 20 [1997]. A con temporary Spanish art exhibit will run concurrently in the west gallery. The CAM is located on the Tampa campus. Admission is free. Hours are: 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday-Friday 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Saturday closed Sunday
Fontsere's soldier wears a Spanish helmet of 1926 design. This is one of a number of posters issued in both large and small formats. It was probably part of the early mobilization efforts. The extreme contrast between light and shadow make this soldier an emotionally powerful icon. The burst of light on his helmet helps make him a positive, rather than forbidding, image.
A photo montage of a sandaled foot crushing a swastika. The rope-soled sandals, alpargatas, are traditional peasant footwear, suggesting that it is the common people who will crush the fascist invaders. Note that the swastika was reversed when the montage was made. Australian surrealist poet Mary Lowmentines seeing the poster after an evening passage occurs toward the end of Red Spanish Notebook, the memoir she wrote with Cuban revolutionary Juan Brea: "We stood outside the columned portico, in front of us a poster flapped in the rain a foot in a Catalan sandal crushing a swastika with negligent, unquestioned strength."
In the background is the red, yellow, and purple republican flag. Before it, standing guard over the soldiers is La Nina Bonita, symbol of the Second Spanish Republic. In the foreground is the cartouche of the International Brigades; above the five-pointed star symbolizing the Popular Army is the clenched-fist salute of the Popular Front. The soldier on the left is wearing a French Adrian helmet, common headgear among soldiers of the republic, and his arm band repeats the colors of the Republic. On the right, the soldier wears a beret with the three-pointed star of the International Brigades. About 40,000 people from other countries came to Spain to join the fight against fascism.
The POUM (Partido Obrero de Unificacion Marxista) was a revolutionary Marxist party that was hostile to the leadership of the Soviet Union. The POUM's main strength was in Catalonia and its capital Barcelona. The POUM's Red Aid was its alternative to International Red Aid, organized by the Comintern. The organization promoted political awareness and social welfare projects. This image of an anguished mother carrying her dead child, virtually offering to hand the body to the viewer, may have influenced Picasso's Guernica.
The Union General de Trabajodores (UCT) was Spain's powerful socialist trade union, the Confederacion Nacionaldel Trabajo(CNT) its powerful anarcho-syndicalist union. Each had about a million members. The imposing lion in this poster, nearly 7-feet tall, stands in front of the red, yellow, and purple flag of the Spanish Republic. The lion's right foot is crushing a fasces, the bundle of rods with an ax blade facing out that symbolized Italian fascism. With a distinctly humanized face, the lion represents not only the country and people of Spain but also their capital city, Madrid.
(Women, Work for the Comrades who Fight) [100x70cm] Juan Antonio. (Issuing organization unknown] This stylized poster may suggest women harvesting wheat. The chaff is being separated from the grain and the wheat mounting in golden piles to the left.
(The Farmer's Produce is as Sacred as the Worker's Wages) (107x85cm. Josep Renac. Issued by the Ministry of Agriculture. This poster probably argues against too rapid collectivization of agriculture, warning us that a farmer's produce belongs to him, much as a worker's wages does. The poster thus defends a peasant's individual right to his land. The Ministry of Agriculture, headed by the communist Vicente Uribe, seized land belonging to Nationalists and gave it to collectives, but resisted efforts to seize large republican properties. Reprinted with permission: "Shouts from the wall." USF Magazine. 4(Fall) 1997. pp. 24-27.
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