Front and Rearguard: Women in the Civil War
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Works in the Collection

FRANCIS BARTOLOZZI (“PITTI”) AND KATI HORNA

The incorporation of works by Francis Bartolozzi (“Pitti”) and Kati Horna into the Museo Reina Sofía Collection stems from the research work and acquisitions policy caried out in recent years. In 2012, the series of Bartolozzi’s etchings Pesadillas infantiles (Childhood Nightmares) and a major set of drawings loaned by the artist’s family became part of the Collection. More recently, in 2017, Kati Horna’s family donated a large representation of the photographer’s work to the Museo. Both figures are an example of how women’s artistic creation found a space in 1930s Spain, also the reason behind their work and careers featuring heavily in this project.

Francis Bartolozzi (“Pitti”)

Francis Bartolozzi, also known as “Pitti” (Madrid, 1908 – Pamplona, 2004), was a draughtswoman, poster artist and writer who produced a series of drawings and prints on the Civil War. She also contributed to the Pedagogical Missions and the weekly publication Altavoz del Frente (Speaker on the Front). After moving from Madrid to Valencia, she made a series of etchings for the Spanish Pavilion at the International Exposition in 1937 in Paris titled Pesadillas infantiles (Childhood Nightmares), with the prints comprising the series recreating possible visions of the violence of war from a child’s perspective. Ultimately, these were one-offs since the original plates were destroyed by the artist. In 1939, Bartolozzi settled in Pamplona and in the decade that followed she worked on the magazine Pregón (Proclamation), and, in addition to centring her practice on mural painting, in 1950 she started to draw cartoon strips for the daily paper Arriba España (Up with Spain). As a writer, she penned stories, opinion pieces and theatre plays.

Works in the Collection

Kati Horna

Kati Horna (Budapest, 1912 – Mexico City 2000) began her training in the early 1930s in Berlin and then later, back in Budapest, with portrait artist and advertising photography pioneer József Pécsi. In Paris she produced her first photo-reportage for Agence Photo and came into close contact with the Surrealist movement. In January 1937, she arrived in Spain to cover the Civil War, commissioned by the Office of Foreign Propaganda of the CNT-FAI (National Confederation of Labour-Federation of Iberian Anarchists), and would travel through different zones in the country, working with magazines and weekly publications such as Umbral (as a photographer and graphics editor) and Tierra y Libertad, Tiempos Nuevos and Libre Studio. Kati Horna’s photographs catch the eye through their broad view of the conflict and the impact on different populations and, drawing inspiration from the Surrealist movement, she also produced photomontages in collaboration with her Spanish husband, José Horna. Both, however, wore forced to flee Spain in exile at the end of the war, moving definitively to Mexico City in 1939, and it was from there that Horna would contribute to magazines such as Estampa, Nosotros, Revista de la Universidad de México, Mujeres. Expresión Femenina, Tiempo and S.Nob, and different architecture magazines, as well as working as a teacher.

Works in the Collection