War Photography The Spanish Civil War was one of the first conflicts that saw mass-produced photographs in the press nationally and internationally, creating the idea of photojournalism. Whether treating them as faithful historical documents or retouching certain pictures to increase their impact, photographers showed first hand what was happening at the front, shaking public opinion with the immediacy of the images.
The participation of news illustrators in the war activities received much more critical coverage than the work of photographers like Agustí Centelles (1909-1985), whose pioneering work of photojournalism unfolded in Spanish and international magazines throughout the war. One of the reasons for the absence of commentaries regarding his specific value might be, paradoxically, his own importance as a register and archive of the war, a role that didn’t need to be theorized because of its direct relationship with the traumatic reality of the combat. The photographer, whose principal task consisted in documenting the war (and whose images were reproduced in the illustrated press and offered basic material to create photomontage posters) was seen as a metaphor of his tool to capture reality. Both the photographer and his camera were considered witnesses of the atrocities of the war and his identity was confused with that of the events he documented.
The “Commissariat of Propaganda” was one of the few agencies which made publicity of the use of photography. Both the director of publications of the Commissariat, the photographer Pere Català-Pic (1889-1971), as well as Jaume Miravitlles, director of the Commissariat, published commentaries regarding the war photography which, for them, was more than an New acquisitions Agustí Centelles. Fotografías de la Guerra Civil, 1936-1938 Anónimo. Fotografías de la Guerra Civil, 1936-1938
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During the Civil War, hundreds of photographic reports dedicated to the conflict were published in magazines within and outside of Spain. Press photography came to convert the Civil War into one of its favorite subjects, approaching it from very different aspects and allowing the photographer to try out different attitudes: from the documenting of facts to the instantaneous capturing of images of great drama. The work of foreign photographers like Robert Capa (1913-1954) or David Seymour “Chim” (1911-1956) inundated the national and international press. Their works were published in Madrid, one of the most beautifully illustrated books about the war which shows the simultaneous use of documentary photographs in the strictest of senses, with others artificially enacted. The artists manipulated the images in the compositions which illustrated the covers and interior pages of the book, just as was done in the design of the posters that were produced and distributed both within the rearguard as well as at the front.
In one of the few texts of the era which commented on the importance of war photography, published in the magazine Alianza: Semanario de barriada de Radio Chamberí, of the Communist Party, the immediacy of war photography with regard to the conflict and the risks that it entailed were highlighted. It encouraged the reader to consider the photographer as “another combatant”. The underlying risks of the photographic image implicated it beyond merely the limits of representation. The image carries with it the reality of the war. As proof, the article bore the image of a camera with a broken lens, together with the following commentary: “The photo that we publish in this work is another testimony of what we want to say. It belongs to our comrade Luvalmar, and broke in his hands one day due to a bomb’s explosion”.
Bibliography Basilio, Miriam. “Esto lo vio Goya. Esto lo vemos nosotros: Goya en la Guerra Civil española”, en: Mendelson, Jordana [ed.]. Revistas, modernidad y guerra. Madrid: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 2008. Gamonal, Miguel A. Arte y política en la Guerra Civil española. El caso republicano. Granada: Diputación Provincial de Granada, 1987. Ribalta, Jorge [ed]. Espacios fotográficos públicos. Exposiciones de propaganda, de “Pressa” a “The Family of Man”, 1928-1955. Barcelona: MACBA, 2009.
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art, it was an historic document. Moreover, its aim was to influence the public opinion. Both understood that the importance of the war photography was rooted in its immediacy, in its role as faithful witness of the act, independently of the photographer’s point of view. One of the reasons why there are so many photographs without known authors or identified only with the name of the agency is, precisely, because the authorship of the image was less important than the authority of the camera. Photographers such as Capa, “Chim”, and Centelles, would draw up battle lines for the photographer’s name to be recognized, even if their images continued to be valued for their authenticity as direct testimony. Alfonso Sánchez Portela (1902-1990), following the footsteps of his father, Alfonso Sánchez García (18801953), came to master fields as different as graphic journalism and the social portrait. The work of other photographers, like Juan Pando (1915-1992), might be less known but their war photographs have no less impact. Just as would occur with so many anonymous illustrators, whose drawings inundated the pages of the magazines and gave rise to so many posters, the professional and amateur photographers contributed to create a visual history of the war that we are even still discovering in the present day.