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Christian Zervos, “Réflexions sur la tentative d’Esthétique dirigée du IIIe Reich,” Cahiers d’art, vol. 11, nos 8–10 (1936), ed. Christian Zervos. Paris: Éditions Cahiers d’art: pp. 209–12 (reproduction).
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Soviet pavilion, “Exposition internationale des ‘Arts et des Techniques appliqués à la vie modern,’” Paris, Postcard, 1937.
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German pavilion, “Exposition internationale des ‘Arts et des Techniques appliqués à la vie modern,’” Paris, Postcard, 1937.
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Dora Maar, “Picasso, André Bréton et Jacqueline Lamba devant Guernica en cours d’exécution,” 1937, Photograph (reproduction) · bpk / CNAC_MNAM / Dora Maar, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018. Pablo Picasso © Succession Picasso / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018.
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“An Exhibition in Defense of World Democracy,”, organized by the American Artists’ Congress, New York, December 1937, Leaflet (reproduction) · Courtesy Miscellaneous art exhibition catalogue collection, 1813–1953, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.
With a geopolitical stage dominated by military aggression (Italy in Ethiopia, Japan in China, the Nationalists and their German supporters in Spain), the 1937 “Exposition internationale des ‘Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne’” was held in Paris when the left anti-fascist Popular Front government saw to a politicization of culture as state propaganda on a hitherto unknown scale. The exhibition was dominated by three pavilions: The monumental Soviet and German pavilions designed by Boris Iofan and Albert Speer respectively, where Vera Mukhina’s sculpture Rabochiy i Kolkhoznitsa (Worker and Kolkhoz Woman) found itself facing the Nazi eagle and swastika; and the pavilion set up by the Republican government of Spain. The latter had been designed by Josep Lluís Sert, who also brought in Joan Miró, Alexander Calder, and Pablo Picasso among others. Picasso’s Guernica was one of two pieces referencing the bombing of civilians by the fascist forces; he also presented the poem and print series Dream and Lie of Franco. This work was shown the same year in an exhibition in New York, “An Exhibition in Defense of World Democracy: To the people of Spain and China,” organized by the American Artists’ Congress (AAC), a Communist Party initiative at the time of the Popular Front policy which sought to unite all forces of the left in order to oppose fascism. The exhibition also featured c hildren’s drawings from Madrid. The congress was interrupted by f ormer communists that had turned against Stalinism, specifically around the formerly communist magazine Partisan Review. AF
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