'Recovered from the Enemy': MNAC displays artworks seized during civil war

The brutality of the civil war went beyond even the death and devastation of the front lines and bombed cities. There were also, even, a slew of logistical problems surrounding the protection and safekeeping of artworks and heritage documents.

Catalonia's National Art Museum of Catalonia was one such site that was used as a depository for artworks that the Franco regime tagged with a label, 'Recovered from the enemy'. 

A new exhibition, open until June 28, explores the dual role of the museum during these turbulent years, first as a site for the Catalan government to collect precious artworks and heritage documents, and later taken over by Franco's Nationalist regime and used as a war depot by the National Heritage Defense Service (SDPAN). 

The backs of many of the 146 pieces are on display, showing off the various labels on the frames, with numbers and other indications. The label 'Recovered from the Enemy’ can be seen on plenty, symbolizing the forceful implementation of a new political order.

The head of collections at the MNAC, Eduard Vallès, explained that the exhibition is an exercise in reviewing the history of the museum, and pointed out that it is as much an exhibition about the history of the museum as it is about the artworks on display.  

“In a context of propaganda against propaganda, it was considered that the Republicans were destroying works of art,” Vallès says. “In a way, it represents the Francoists as recovering and saving them. None of this was true, but in this context, that is what was happening,” he concluded.

When visitors observe these labels and the inventory numbers on the back of the painting, they may be able to learn more about the history of the work than by admiring the front.