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From the Inside Cover Introduction
of "They Still Draw Pictures" :
" ...They Still Draw Pictures
collects and comments on a
cross-section of children's art
produced in wartime, with
particular focus on the
Spanish Civil War.
Of the 600,000 refugees who
sought shelter from Franco's
tyranny in the relative security
of Reppublican-controlled
eastern Spain, 200,000 of
them were children. The
Republic responded to this
crisis by establishing colonias
infantiles (children's colonies),
often in country estates and
mansions that had been
abandoned by fascist
sympathizers. In these
colonies, the young refugees -
many of them of them
orphaned or sent by their
parents to safety - received
schooling and medical care,
kept each other company, and
produced thousands of
drawings that serve as a
moving collective testimony of
the experience of being a child
in wartime.
Born of the trauma of exile
and separation, the drawings
are invaluable historical
documents, giving physical
form to the children;s
experiences of air raids,
brutality, destruction, and
homelessness. These picture
also represent daily life in the
colonies and preserve the
children's clear memories of
life before the war and their
hope for life after it.
.... Deceptively transparent,
these drawings speak with a
poignanant immediacy of
war's consequences for its
youngest victims."
Left: "In the foreground,
eyes raised in anger and
impotence, (a woman)
shakes her fist at the
three bombers receding
into the distance, leaving
the village in flames.
Next to her, and slightly
farther from us, a child
clutches her father's
shirttails as he shoulders
a bundle, bent under the
weight of a few
possessions salvaged
from the bombardment ..."
Author and Age Unknown
Watercolor From a Republican Refugee Camp.
1937-38
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Left: From the
Evacuation and
Displacement Drawings:
"Five figures arrayed in a
broad V walk toward the
viewer. The children,
eyes and mouths round
with fear and wonder,
carry their luggage. The
mother's face us more
serene or resigned,
mouth and eyes
elongated. In the
background six
schematically drawn
houses, smoke rising
from the chimneys, show
us what they are leaving.
Flames from the
mountains on the back
horizon show us why."
Luisa Rodriguez, Age 11
Writing on the Back of the Drawing Identifies Luisa,
her Mother, and her Brother "as we were leaving for
Santander. And the cannons shot shells that set Mt.
Arraiz on fire."
Rafael Barber, Age 10
"Rafael Barber, ten years old, drew this picture in the Colonia Escolar
Colectiva de Burriana, in the eastern province of Castellon. Nazi
warplanes fill the sky from edge to edge of the neatly traced border
that frames the drawing, as though hoping to contain the violence.
Their murderous geometry occupies nearly the entire composition.
The strict linearity of the airplanes, reminiscent of an Italian futuristic
painting, contrasts with the asymmetrical landscape below. If we
understand the buildings to be drafted on a human scale, we realize
that the bombers and fighters dwarf them. Their larger than life size,
though compositionally incorrect, rings true emotionally. The castle,
a remnant of medieval warfare, is useless to protect the village
against the blitzkrieg. The absence of any sign of human life
increases the pathos of this piece."
They Still Draw Pictures
Children's Art inWartime
From the Spanish Civil War to Kosovo
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Written by Anthony L. Geist and Peter N. Carroll
"Once I drew
like Rafael,
but it has
taken me a
lifetime to
draw like a
child"
Pablo Picasso
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