What happened to the art that was saved by the Republicans during the Civil War?

This Thursday, the Castelo building will open its doors to Arturo Colorado Castellary, who will speak heritage in war and post-war. confiscations and diasporas. In this way, he is professor and professor emeritus of art and communication at the Complutense University in Madrid and the main researcher of the project Artistic heritage in the civil war and its aftermath will analyze what happened to the art that was saved by the Republicans after the Civil War. Therefore, the conference will focus on «the republican art confiscation policy and the actions carried out under Francoism with thousands of works saved by the Republic».

In the first part of his speech, Arturo Colorado will describe «The Government of the Republic founded the Art Treasury, which confiscated, collected and stored thousands of works. Faced with the weight of two Francoist bombings and two of their allies, the most important of these works were evacuated to Valencia, then to Barcelona and northern Catalonia, and finally, thanks to international intervention, they reached Xenebra», specified from the Museum of Pontevedra.

After that, he will answer the question «that Francoism fixed in the immediate post-war period with thousands of works saved by the Republic, both while they remained in Spain and while they were returning abroad». In that sense, “Most of the 17,000 pieces that could be made or traced were returned to their owners, although a large number were diverted to other recipients, who in many cases recognized them as their own”they added.

In this way, one of the questions they will put on paper is «The delivery of thousands of these pieces to museums, public organizations, churches and even individuals, or produced or looted, the diaspora and the disappearance of numerous works. A specific case is one of the confiscations of the collections of two republican exiles, which were randomly delivered to other recipients»remark from the Pontevedra Museum.

In this context, Arturo Colorado will establish parallels between Franco’s robbery and that carried out by the Nazis at the time. That is why, as with the works stolen by the Nazis, the professor and professor emeritus of arts and communication at Complutense defends the need to direct the investigation and possible return of these works to the heirs of the original owners who saw their heritage confiscated.