Art and propaganda

The young generation of informalist artists in the late 1950s (from Antonio Saura to Antoni Tàpies) found themselves at a crossroads: remain isolated from the international avant-garde in a country subject to isolation, or make themselves known in international exhibitions and bienales organized by General Franco’s regime. 

For most of them, participating in biennials and exhibitions outside Spain was an unbeatable opportunity to open up to the outside world, even if it was at the behest of the authorities, but without renouncing their ideals and showing their opposition to the dictatorship. The Franco regime has often been accused of using avant-garde art to project an image of modernity and openness abroad that did not correspond to the real situation in the country, but it was through this that Spain definitively joined the international art scene.

Young Spanish artists held different positions, with many of them disassociating themselves from these initiatives as soon as they became known abroad, while others continued to participate and chose to denounce the lack of freedoms and the difficulties that plagued our country.

Genoveva Tusell (Madrid, 1975) is a professor in the Department of Art History at Spain’s National University of Distance Education (UNED) who holds a PhD in Art History. Her research explores Francoism, the relationships between art and politics and the international impact of artists in the 1950s and 1960s. She has also conducted different studies on Picasso and Francoism, in addition to the arrival of Guernica to Spain. These investigations have resulted in books such as El “Guernica” recobrado. Picasso, el franquismo y la llegada de la obra a España (Cátedra, 2017).