History in a Shoebox : Photographs from the Spanish Civil War

Friday, 14 July 2006 12:24

Wellesley, MA - For the first time, photographic negatives recovered from the town of Lleida during the Spanish Civil War have been developed and the never-before-seen photographs will be on exhibition at the Sculpture Court Gallery at Wellesley College’s Jewett Art Center September 27 through October 29.  History in a Shoebox: Photographs from the Spanish Civil War, Lleida 1936-1939 is presented by Wellesley’s Art and Spanish Departments with the Davis Museum and Cultural Center.  The exhibition and related events are free and open to the public.

The exhibit features 20 photographs of unique images that were taken by Ramon Rius, a baker from Lleida, kept in a box, and recently passed on to his granddaughter.  “For a citizen to have the pictures or even to be seen in them, after the Fascists won the war, could have meant an instantaneous death sentence,” notes curator Carlos Ramos, “especially since they portray images of the loyalists to the Republic.”

Ramon Rius documented church burnings, paramilitary forces, demonstrations in support of the Republic, and finally the fascists entering the town.  (When German planes bombed the city, he took refuge in the countryside).  When democracy returned to Spain, after Franco's death in 1975, the unspoken attitude towards the memory of the war was to forget and to move on.  It has been in later years, with democracy fully asserted in Spain and the 70th anniversary being celebrated this year, that the focus and the reevaluation of the war intensified.

History in a Shoebox: Photographs from the Spanish Civil War, Lleida 1936-1939 is organized by Carlos Ramos, associate professor, Spanish Department and Judith Black, associate professor, Art Department; with Elisabeth Ford, assistant professor, English. History in a Shoebox is co-sponsored by Wellesley College’s Art and Spanish Departments and the Newhouse Center for the Humanities.  Funding is made possible through the generosity of The Kathryn Wasserman Davis '28 Fund for World Cultures and Leadership.