The political poster explosion of July 1936 has been highly acclaimed by critics and scholars worldwide. One of the best-known posters of the time, "Freedom!" – which has acquired near cult status – shows a peasant holding a sickle aloft, set against the anarchist red-and-black flag. The artist, Carles Fontserè, was just twenty years old when he joined the revolution along with fellow artists and comrades-in-arms, Josep Alumà, Helios Gómez, Antoni Clavé and many others who appear in this account.

In his outstanding memoirs, which are more artistic, political and collective than intimate, Fontserè recounts his upbringing in a petit bourgeois family with Carlist leanings along with his experience in the Barcelona Requeté. His thirst for reading led him to the writings of Tolstoy, which inspired his nascent libertarian ideals culminating in his road-to-Damascus transformation during the heady events of the Nationalist military uprising in Barcelona.

Fontserè played a key role in the founding of the Professional Drawing Union in 1936 and went on to draw posters for the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI) and the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM), among other political parties. He served with the International Brigades and, paradoxically, survived several close brushes with death from his own side. His story culminates with the Republican retreat from Barcelona and his escape over the Pyrenees, together with Catalan president Lluís Companys and his cabinet, into exile in France.

Fontserè's Memoirs of a Spanish Civil War Artist masterfully combines autobiography and history through the eyes of one of the 20th century's foremost Catalan graphic artists, known worldwide for his Republican propaganda posters. The book of Carles Fontserè's memoirs is not only an excellent translation from Catalan to English, but one central to the history of Catalonia.



Carles Fontserè (Barcelona, 1916-2007) was a stage designer, illustrator and advertising artist who drew some of the most iconic political posters of the Spanish Civil War. After the fall of the Second Republic he fled to France ahead of the Nationalist advance, and was interned in several French concentration camps. In 1939 he made his way to Paris, where he continued his artistic career.

Subsequently, in 1948, he travelled to Mexico to collaborate on a Parisian-style revue with Mario Moreno, aka Cantinflas. Moving to New York one year later, he worked as an illustrator, taxi driver and photographer.

Carles Fontserè designed stage sets with Salvador Dalí, including working together on the performance art production, "A Happening with Salvador Dali" at the Lincoln Center in Philharmonic Hall in 1966. 

He finally returned to Catalonia in 1973 with his American wife of Catalan heritage, Terry Broch. They settled in Porqueres (Girona) and built a house and studio in the nearby hills. Fontserè was awarded the Creu de Sant Jordi medal by the Catalan government in 1985, and in the early 1990s he began writing his memoirs, which have had a remarkable international impact.



Preface

The Republic and the Requeté

Enriching Experiences

The Traditionalist Circle

The Barcelona Requeté

Early Political Drawings

The Beginnings of a Profession

Forerunners of Political Art in Autonomous Catalonia

1933: A Crucial Year

The Revolution of 6 October 1934

Graphic Artist

The Elections of 16 February 1936

Optimism of the Left

The Founding of the Professional Drawing Union

Not Just Any Summer Sunday

The Solterra-Barbarà Palace

The First Posters

Colleagues and Fellow Travellers

Other Professionals and Unions

Antifacist Propaganda on Railway Carriages

Social Strife and Mayhem

The SDP: A Hub for Graphic Propaganda

Revolutionary Cartoonists

The Walls Speak Out

From Worker Unity to the CADCI Meeting

From the Catalan Militias to the Spanish Army

The Watershed Moment of May 1937

From the Rear-Guard to the Front and Vice Versa

Catalans in the International Brigades

Albacete, International Brigades Headquarters

From Cambrils to the Ebro Front

Between the Propaganda Commissariat and AAA Headquarters

Barcelona, Capital of Republican Spain

Last Days of the War in Catalonia

Post Scriptum - The Survival of the Republican Poster

A note on the translation

Photographs & Posters

Selection of posters by some of the artists mentioned by Carles Fontserè

Acknowledgements