" Facing Fascism" on view at Museum of the City of New York

Sunday, 01 April 2007 23:06

NEW YORK CITY - Exhibition Explores Vital Chapter of New York City History During Moment of International Crisis.

When should the United States intervene in a crisis abroad?  What happens when public opinion and official foreign policy come into conflict?  A new exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York will look at how New York, the nation’s most heterogeneous and international city, responded to the crisis surrounding the Spanish Civil War, prefiguring the debates over U.S. participation in the World War II and continuing to the divisive international policy dilemmas of today.  Facing Fascism: New York and the Spanish Civil War will be on view through August 12, 2007.  Historical documents, artifacts, photographs, correspondence, original works of art, and video will be on view to shed light on all sides of this epic international struggle, played out on both the home front and the battlefront.

“New York City in the 1930s was writhing from the economic pains of the Great Depression and yet alive with idealism and hope,” commented Susan Henshaw Jones, President and Director of the Museum.  “This exhibition tells extraordinary stories about the New Yorkers—people like your neighbors and mine—who were most passionately engaged in the spirit of their times.  And the choices they felt compelled to make—some seeming morally clear, others seeming politically ambiguous---resonate with us now.

” The exhibition is a collaborative project of the Museum of the City of New York, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives, Instituto Cervantes New York, and the Tamiment Library of New York University.  A book, Facing Fascism: New York and the Spanish Civil War (NYU Press and the Museum of the City of New York, 2007) accompanies the exhibition; edited by Peter N. Carroll and James D. Fernandez, it contains a foreword by E. L. Doctorow and 14 newly commissioned essays by leading scholars.

Perry Rosenstein of The Puffin Foundation, Ltd., the lead funder of the exhibition, commented: "We at The Puffin Foundation are honored to have the privilege of seeing the history of the Spanish Civil War and the city's role in it brought to the light of day in this important exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York."

About the Exhibition

Political ferment in 1930s New York City was fueled by people who considered themselves not simply New Yorkers, but citizens of the world.  Members of labor unions, students, and the city’s large unemployed population, many of whom were members of leftist political groups, felt a responsibility to act when, in 1936, General Francisco Franco led a military revolt against the democratically elected government of the Spanish Republic.  Although Franco expected the Republic to fall within weeks, a brutal civil war went on for three years, ultimately claiming the lives of between 500,000 and one million people.  The Nationalists, led by Franco, were strongly aided by Hitler and Mussolini, who provided money, arms and war supplies, infantry troops, and air force units.  The only government to provide major military support to the Republic was the Soviet Union, with England, France, and the United States adopting official policies of non-intervention.  In 1937, the United States imposed an arms embargo.

In part as a response to the U.S. government’s stance, New Yorkers attracted national attention to the conflict, demonstrating, writing, speaking out, and orchestrating diverse aid drives.  Celebrated New Yorkers—Langston Hughes, Martha Graham, and Gypsy Rose Lee among them—used their public profiles to help raise awareness and support the Republic.  Religious and ethnically defined organizations and social groups quickly became involved, agitating on opposing sides of the fight even within their own communities; these included the Jewish community, New Yorkers of Italian descent (on view will be an iron wedding band of the type sent by Mussolini to the thousands of Italian-American women who had contributed their gold jewelry to Italy for the war effort), African-Americans, and Irish Catholics, among others.  Visual and performing artists also responded. Among the works on view to trace the story of New York City’s mobilization will be photographs of such celebrities as Marion Anderson, Dorothy Parker, and Paul Robeson engaged in activities related to the war; photographs of Martha Graham’s Deep Song, her elegy to the Spanish Republic; photographs of Picasso at work on Guernica; Philip Guston’s monumental painting Bombardment; and Robert Motherwell’s powerful Barcelona Elegy for the Spanish Republic, which, completed months before the artist’s death in 1991, reflected his 55-year-long obsession with the crisis in Spain.

New Yorkers also played a key role in the formation of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the American component of the International Brigades, a military force composed of 35,000 volunteers from more than 50 nations fighting on the side of the Spanish Republic.  Early volunteers emerged from the city’s most radical circles, although many had little experience with the realities of soldiering.  Harry Meloff, a member of the amateur vaudeville troupe, the Convulsionaries, went to Spain and continued assembling men to act out short comedic sketches, even at the front, until his death in the battle of Belchite.  His photograph, among others, will be on view, alongside letters, berthing cards, military uniforms (including one worn by celebrated painter Ralph Fasanella and one worn by Evelyn Hutchins, one of only two women who joined the Brigade), weapons, and equipment documenting the lives and histories of those who fought in Spain, ultimately totaling some 2800 Americans.  Also on view will be leaflets, brochures, announcements, and other historic artifacts documenting the role played by those in the medical profession, including ephemera telling the story of Salaria Kea, an African-American nurse who left her job at Harlem Hospital to care for the troops abroad. (Kea went on to be featured in famed photographer Henri Cartier Bresson’s first film, a documentary about the blood transfusion unit in the Spanish Civil War.)

After the Spanish Republic fell to Franco’s forces, and Hitler invaded Poland only months later, triggering the outbreak of World War II, many viewed the veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade as both heroic and precient. Others viewed “the Lincolns,” as they were known, with suspicion and even contempt.  Labeled premature anti-fascists by the U.S. military, Lincoln veterans and medical workers, due to the role the Communist Party had played in recruiting for the International Brigade, faced scrutiny and harassment during the McCarthy era.  Dr. Edward K. Barsky, who had headed the American medical unit in Spain and later been on the board of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee in subsequent years, served a jail sentence (as did other board members) following an investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee.  On view in the exhibition is a collection can for Spanish Refugee Relief that was introduced as evidence in the trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.

Insight into the impact of the war on New Yorkers can be gained from the story—just one among the many poignant and revealing instances of idealism demonstrated through action—of James Lardner, the son of renowned writer Ring Lardner, who left his job at the New York Herald to become a soldier in the Brigade. He wrote from Barcelona on May 3, 1938, in a letter on view in the exhibition:

Because I believe that fascism is wrong and must be exterminated, and that liberal democracy or more probably communism is right…Because in my ambitious quest for knowledge in all fields, I cannot afford in this age to overlook war… Because I am mentally lazy and should like to do some physical work for a change.  Because I need something remarkable in my background to make up for my unfortunate self-consciousness in social relations… Because there is a girl in Paris who will have to learn that my presence is not necessary to her existence… Because I want to improve my Spanish as well as my French.  Because I want to know what it is like to be afraid of something and I want to see how other people react to danger. Because there may be a chance to do some reading and I won’t have to wear a necktie.

Lardner is believed to have been the last American to die in the Spanish Civil War.

Credits

The Puffin Foundation Ltd. seeks to promote an ongoing dialogue between art and the lives of ordinary people, in the conviction that a free and heterogeneous cultural environment is the basis of a healthy, democratic society.  Additional generous support comes from the Fundación Pablo Iglesias.

The curators of the exhibition are Sarah M. Henry, the Museum of the City of New York’s Deputy Director and Chief Curator, and Thomas Mellins, the Museum’s Curator of Special Exhibitions.  Elizabeth Compa, Curatorial Associate, assisted with research and development of the exhibition.  Constantin Boym of Boym Partners is the Exhibition Designer, and Pure + Applied is the Graphic Designer.

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