The 1938 Venice Biennale

The 21st Venice Biennale, held in the Italian city in June 1938, bore witness to the political instability affecting Europe. Spain’s participation was a clear example of this. The country’s representation was placed in the hands of Franco’s illegitimate government, which officially took part in the event thanks to the open support of Fascist Italy.

The political ties the two nations displayed were imbued with pride and admiration for their respective artistic traditions, upon which nationalist discourses were built. The Spanish pavilion was overseen by the Catalan intellectual Eugenio D’Ors, who held the Francoist government’s National Directorship of Fine Arts. D’Ors, a strong advocate of classicism, celebrated the influence of Italian art on Spanish art and assembled for the occasion around one hundred works by ten male artists who were ambassadors of that tradition. According to the press at the time, the selected artists were “true Spaniards” because “they represent the glorious tradition of Spain, for which Generalissimo Franco is fighting.”

Among those artists were painter Fernando Álvarez de Sotomayor, who had directed the Prado Museum until the advent of the Spanish Second Republic (and would do so again in 1939); Ignacio Zuloaga, who had his own room and won the Grand Prize of the Biennale; and sculptor Enrique Pérez Comendador, who was living in Rome at the time. Portuguese painter Lino António and Uruguayan sculptor Pablo Mañé, both present due to the ideological ties underlying the participation of their respective countries, were also featured.

Few of the works displayed referred to the Civil War: two paintings by Zuloaga, the solemn and powerful portrait of Franco by José Aguiar, and the praised painting The Death of the Franco Soldier by Pere Pruna, a representative of the young painters of the time and, in this case, indebted to El Greco.

The exhibition at the Spanish pavilion was widely acclaimed. The rooms were visited by Emperor-King Vittorio Emanuele III, and Eugenio D’Ors was awarded the title of Commander of the Order of the Italian Crown. A major international success for the self-proclaimed Government of Burgos.

IEG