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Sergio Aragonés Domenech
51 editorial cartoons by Sergio Aragonés (1937), published in España Libre in the 1960s
After escaping first the Spanish Civil War and then the Nazi occupation of France, Aragonés's family arrived in Mexico in 1942. In Mexico, his uncle, Manuel Aragonés, served as the Secretary of Manuel Martínez Feduchy, the Spanish Second Republic government-in-exile Consul in Mexico. They were in contact with Jesús González Malo, editor of España Libre, to assist in providing Mexican visas to Spanish refugees arriving in the United States.
In 1962, Sergio Aragonés moved to New York and began working for Mad magazine. He responded to the news on Fascist Spain with his editorial cartoons thanks to the communication channels with the undercover resistance in Spain that Malo established.
This antifascist culture permeated Aragonés’s artistic development in the United States. His Marginals in Mad magazine continued to challenge fascistic views of reality that impose the rhetorics of power, perfection, and regenerative destruction. Instead, Aragonés's art provides the legacy of a curious and playful attitude to life.
Aragonés on Fascist Spain
The proletarian, educational, and humorous sensibility of editorial cartoons and graphic art in the New York’s periodical España Libre invited readers to decode Fascist Spain’s news, often ignored in mainstream media.
Aragonés’s cartoons documented the pillars of Fascist Spain: the unique leader, autarky, censorship, Falange, imperial rhetoric, National Catholicism, oligarchy, and the militarized violence and repression of civilians. The ever-present Francoist slogan, España: Una, Grande y Libre (Spain: One, Great and Free), encapsulated the myth of a military, Catholic, and totalitarian españolidad, free from subversives. Spanish fascists believed in the unity, uniqueness, and perfection of the Spanish state (Payne 1999). The myth of regenerative death as redemption for the nation and the veneration of a charismatic leader were common patterns in European and transnational fascist movements.
The Spanish regime’s propaganda portrayed Franco as a charismatic, bold leader who saved Spain from leftist radicalism. In The Great Manipulator, Paul Preston demonstrates how Franco consistently revised his life story and continually refined it, either directly in his speeches and articles or indirectly through interviews with journalists or conversations with his official biographers. Franco created an exaggerated image of his achievements, which grew ever more disproportionate once he had a propaganda apparatus at his disposal. His delight in being compared to the mythical warrior heroes and the natural empire builders in Spanish history – above all, El Cid, Carlos V, or Felipe II – was derived, in part, from reading his propaganda (Preston 2013). Accordingly, Franco’s image as a military commander, El Generalissimo or Caudillo, permeated Spanish public spaces with grandiose monuments and portraits. The regime’s control of the press and its ubiquitous propaganda, termed NODO (Noticiario y Documentales/ News and Documentaries), infused cinemas and television with praise for Franco and his Movimiento. On such public occasions, people were expected to do the Spanish fascist salute, an imitation of the Nazi salute, even when simply watching a film in a cinema.
Aragonés on International and Monarchic Relations
Aragonés's cartoons also mocked Franco's international and monarchic relations.
Old Franco thinks of Juan Carlos as the new King of Spain to continue leading his regime of oligarchs, military men, and the Catholic Church. Meanwhile, a worker continues to hope for liberal democracy.
The exhibit read by Diego Colindres.
Aragonés on Antifascist Resistance
Equally important, Aragonés’s art dignified the voice of the antifascist resistance, undercover and in exile. Upon hearing the news of the long prison terms for Francisco Calle, José Cases, and Mariano Pascual, underground anarchist union and Labor Union Alliance leaders in Franco’s Spain in 1964, Aragonés recreated this transnational proletarian identity by depicting a worker whose head is an earth globe, shedding a tear. The image is reminiscent of Popeye the Sailor Man or Rosie the Riveter for its iconic potential and reveals how Aragonés’s artistry was nurtured in his transnational experiences.
Despite the political and economic help that unions such as the UAW sent to the resistance via SHC, clandestine groups remained vulnerable under the brutal state repression in fascist Spain. For instance, Franco's intelligence network intercepted a phone call between the ASO and SHC member, Gabriel Javsicas, who was visiting Spain at the time.
The exhibit read by Diego Colindres.