Introduction

Visual Index (Entire Poster Collection)

Catalogue

Chronology of the War

Acknowledgements

Lists of References

Afterword: Herbert R. Southworth Collection

Mando único en el transporte al servicio de la guera

[Unified command in the transport sector for the war effort]. José Bardasano. Partido Comunista de España Lithograph, black & white; 100 x 70 cm.

Transportation of munitions to the front and foodstuffs to the rearguard was an essential part of the war effort in Republican Spain. In this image, a line of cargo trucks stretches into the distance along an S-shaped road. The unity of the command is emphasized by the orderliness of the trucks as they move from a darkened landscape into one where the light shines.

The artist of this piece is José Bardasano. Bardasano (1910-1979) was the child of Madrid working-class parents. A largely self-taught artist, the young Bardasano was working as an artistic director in an advertising agency when war broke out in 1936. Already a member of the communist-controlled JSU (Juventud Socialista Unificada), Bardasano immediately established a workshop with two colleagues and produced numerous propaganda prints and posters for the Communist Party. In 1937, Bardasano and his wife, the artist, Juana Francisca, moved to Valencia, where they continued to produce propaganda posters. At the end of the war, Bardasano and Francisca spent some time in a French concentration camp, after which they took exile in Mexico. Here Bardasano formed the Mexican Fine Arts Circle with a number of other Civil War exiles and Mexican nationals. In 1960, he returned to Madrid. Other representatives of Bardasano's work in this exhibit include: posters 42, 51 and 94.