Spanish Refugee Campaign Relief, North America
With delegations in the USA and Canada and founded in 1936, the Spanish Refugee Relief Campaign was an aid organisation set up to raise funds for Spanish exiles during the Civil War. To this end, it organised the exhibition Picasso’s Guernica, which toured New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago, and was the first showing of the painting beyond Europe’s frontiers. The impact of the canvas on the press and public was of such magnitude that it irrevocably became a symbol against violence towards civilians.
During the Spanish Civil War, numerous movements of support for the democratic government of the Republic and the Spanish people gestated internationally. In the USA, despite the US government officially remaining neutral, one of those movements was the non-governmental organisation the Spanish Refugee Relief Campaign (SRRC). Its mission was to provide assistance to the thousands of refugees who had to flee Spain - displaced to America and Canada – during the war and in the years that followed with funds raised to cover their basic needs and to find accommodation. One of its slogans was “Spain’s people fought for you” to hold back the (potential) spread of fascism in Spain, a portent of the Second World War and the subject matter of Picasso’s Guernica.
In May of 1939, following the unveiling of Guernica in the UK backed by the National Joint Committee for Spanish Relief, the painting travelled to New York to ensure its inclusion in an exhibition being organised by the Museum of Modern Art on Picasso in November that year. The painting, however, was due to be involved beforehand in a touring exhibition organised by the SRRC, where it would stand as a symbol of fascist violence against civilians. The tour, with its early negotiations dating back to March of that same year, was supported by Picasso, who accepted that the work would be fully utilised to become a fundraising strategy to help the Spanish people. It was Blanche Mahler, one of the heads of the organisation, who went to the Port of New York to collect both the painting and the series of preparatory paintings and drawings, and it was at this juncture when the search for gallery spaces and donors began, involving politicians, writers, artists, musicians and film-makers. New York’s Valentine Gallery, which had previously housed Picasso’s work, was the first venue for the exhibition Picasso’s Guernica on its US tour.
The conserved documents reflect the organisation’s tireless endeavours on the project, primarily managed by Evelyn Ahrend, Herman F. Reissig and Blanche Mahler, and recount the multiple invites sent out to museums and institutions to house the exhibition, as well as the monitoring of rates, payments, catalogue mailings and sales in each venue. This exhibition was one of the many activities promoted by organisations like the SRRC in support of the Spanish people, and therefore played a part in raising awareness of the situation facing the populace, civilian refugees, children and intellectuals by way of lectures, parties, functions, encounters and publications.
