Sabatini Building, Floor 4

Campo cerrado

Autarchy in Spain, spanning the end of the Civil War, in 1939, to 1953, with the signing of the Pacts of Madrid, is a period shaped by the co-existence of two frames of reference: the reality of day-to-day problems and the narrative of official art. The national faction’s victory sparked the rupture of the avant-garde and modernity reached in the preceding decades, replaced by the triumphalist rhetoric of National Catholicism which, in the late 1940s and in the face of international isolation, shifted to transmit a more modern and positive image of the country.

Artworks in the Collection

Rooms in the Collection

Sponsorship

Campo cerrado

Autarchy in Spain, spanning the end of the Civil War, in 1939, to 1953, with the signing of the Pacts of Madrid, is a period shaped by the co-existence of two frames of reference: the reality of day-to-day problems and the narrative of official art. The national faction’s victory sparked the rupture of the avant-garde and modernity reached in the preceding decades, replaced by the triumphalist rhetoric of National Catholicism which, in the late 1940s and in the face of international isolation, shifted to transmit a more modern and positive image of the country. In this survey, focused more on materials from everyday settings and popular culture, architecture occupies a prominent position in its unearthing of new lines of investigation on the period and artistic production in relation to the economy and social changes which occurred at the time, including the issue of emigration. On a final note, and tied in with the Cold War discourse on the same floor, we foreground exhibitions as weapons of power and propaganda, placing the stress on the Spanish Pavilion at the Milan Triennial XI (1951) and the Exhibition of Abstract Art in Santander (1953).