With the gradual lifting of national and regional restrictions on movement due to the COVID pandemic one of the first ‘ventures out’ was to the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya. Whilst not the first visit to the Museu it was an opportunity to visit its new rooms dedicated to “Art and the Spanish Civil War”. Although relatively small, it is a visually striking display and well worth a visit, one which I have subsequently repeated.
During my first viewing I noticed a large framed image hung up high on a wall along with a number of Civil War posters. At the time it seemed materially unlike any of the other items surrounding it and, after a little checking, I discovered that it was in fact a painting entitled “Lina Odena”, incongruously mixed-in with the posters.[1]
Now, following a more recent visit to the Museu, it is possible to view the painting at a more reasonable viewing height in a small room just off of the main display of posters. The painting is signed “J. Pons, XXXVII” [i.e. 1937]. The Museu plaque for the painting adds a question mark after the name J. Pons because she or he remains unidentified as an artist. This is a little surprising given that the painting was exhibited as part of the Pavilion of the Spanish Republic at the 1937 International Exhibition in Paris. This was the same International Exhibition at which Pablo Picasso’s painting “Guernica” was presented in the Spanish Pavilion.
Lina Odena by J. Pons |
Museu Placque |
Paulina (Lina) Odena Garcia was the daughter of parents who ran a tailor’s shop in the Eixample district of Barcelona[2]. Attracted to communist ideas at an early age, in 1931 she was part of a delegation of young Catalans who went to the Soviet Union and spent a little over a year there studying. On her return to Spain she became a member of the Communist Youth of Catalonia and was appointed its Secretary General in February 1933. When the Revolution of October 1934 broke out in Catalonia she took up arms and was involved in the fighting that took place in San Cugat del Vallés and other towns. When the uprising failed, after a period of imprisonment, she went underground and joined the International Red Aid.
In 1935 Lina was called to Madrid by the leadership of the Spanish Communist Party (PCE), and during the 1936 national election she accompanied Dolores Ibárruri, “la Pasionaria”, on the election campaign trail throughout Spain.
At the start of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936 Lina was in Almería (Andalusia) from where she took up arms as an active combatant. Aviators from the Almeria air-base, who remained loyal to the Republican Government and who participated in these early battles alongside Lina, appointed her as their representative in the local political committee supporting the fight against the Francoist forces. As a symbol of this position Lina wore the wings of the air force on her militia overalls, and these can be seen in the last photographs taken of her and also in the Pons painting.
On 14 September 1936 Lina, now acting as a correspondent of the PCE newspaper Mundo Obrero, was in a car near the Cubillas reservoir in Andalusia which through error, or simple bad luck, ran into a Falangist (fascist) roadblock. It was here that Lina aged 25 died, most likely by her own hand to avoid the abuse and degradation that the Francoist forces would undoubtedly have inflicted upon her.[3]
A futile search to try and discover more about the artist J. Pons led me to a piece in La Vanguardia newspaper in which it is claimed that the painter of Lina Odena used a contemporary photograph as inspiration. Given that there were no available, non-Fascist, witnesses to Lina Odena’s death artistic imagination was clearly needed, and there is a very striking resemblance in the kneeling poses and angle and positioning of the arms holding the pistol in both the photograph and painting.
Republican militia-woman training on the beach, outside Barcelona, August 1936
© Gerda Taro | International Center of Photography | Magnum Photos
The photographer Gerta Pohorylle, professionally known as Gerda Taro, was a German Jewish war photographer working during the Spanish Civil War. She is remembered as the first woman photojournalist to have died, aged 26, whilst covering the frontline of a war. She is, I have to be honest, not someone I had previously heard of. What struck me however was this connection between 2 young politically committed women both killed as actors, in different capacities, during the Spanish Civil War. Whilst there is no evidence that their physical paths crossed they are, seemingly and unknowingly, connected through imagery as well as tragic events.
Lina Odena |
Gerda Taro |
Lina and Gerda are both remembered in Spain today. A children’s playground named after Lina Odena is to be found in the Eixample district of Barcelona, and in 2017 the City Council of Madrid named a street in the city after Gerda Taro (Calle Gerda Taro).
[1] A number libraries have on-line displays of their Spanish Civil War poster collections. Here are two;
Brandeis University Special Collections
[2] As well as information from her Wikipedia entry there is a short biography in Catalan, ‘Lina Ódena. Lluita De Dona’, by Manuel Moreno, ISBN 9788493534288. There is also an interesting blog written by Juan Francisco Arenas de Soria in 2019.
[3] Upon hearing the news of Lina Odena’s death Dolores Ibárruria wrote, “You were not by our side and yet we felt you close to us. We needed you; we couldn’t fill your job because you were unique. Always willing, active, affectionate, selfless, laughing with healthy optimism in the face of the greatest difficulties. And now you are no longer. Lina Odena is dead!, they told us, and we couldn’t believe it. We couldn’t get used to the idea that you would be missing forever from our side….Lina Odena was for each one of us the sister, the friend, the comrade. How difficult it is to resign oneself to never seeing her again, not hearing her voice, with a strong Catalan accent, speaking of work, organization, victories, decisive triumphs over fascism!…Dear Lina! My eyes are clouded with tears and I am not ashamed of my crying, because I cry for you; for you, who for us were a well-founded hope for the titanic work of educating youth; for you, who were our dearest companion, our sister.” (September 23, 1936)
Thank you John. I had an interesting afternoon extending my knowledge & understanding of the Spanish Civil War and of some of the women who gave so much for a good and fair way of living in a difficult world. I will follow up the American woman next week…… such love and courage.
Sue