When my father visited Juan Negrin early in 1937 the Premier asked him what his plans were. And when he explained his idea of travelling along the entire front of the war to do drawings of the war, Negrin thought it was a good idea, believing that the drawings would not only possess artistic merit but would be a document of lasting historic importance.

In the spring of that year he set out in an automobile with a young driver who had been wounded on the front and, forced to change their car several times, traversed the entire front of the war, from Almeria up to the Pyrenees, in two months. Then he borrowed the Mediterranean seaside home of his artist friend Joaquin Sunyer, who was staying in France with his wife and children during the war. And in the town of Sitges, far from the battlefield, he put his drawings into their final form.

Working intensely he completed 140 drawings in three months. These were shown in Barcelona, in the Hotel Ritz. The Catalan Generalitat arranged for the show, paid for the catalogs, its announcements, and the reproductions. And a Catalan art dealer, Merli, representing the autonomous Catalan government, had the salon of the Ritz draped in red, creating a sharp contrast against all the glassed-in framed drawings of cadavers and the war. That is why I chose that color as the background color for this page, to reproduce the spirit of the Ritz in 1937. And because Merli was on to something: red makes a good contrast for these drawings.

The show opened on Christmas day, 1937, and Hemingway and Julian Zugazagotia acted as "amistosos comentaristas," friendly commentators and hosts. Luis Companys, the President of the autonomous Catalan government, appeared, as well as many artists, writers, and Republican government officials.

The drawings were done on Imperial Japan paper, and are approximately 11 1/2 x 17" in size.

Studies for the War Drawings

Andalucia: "Why do the kill us?"

An important drawing, one that Hemingway liked very much and wanted. It was stolen, by a distant relative, of all people, from my collection. If you should happen to actually see this drawing you are looking at stolen property.

I have 73 (74 including the one which was stolen) of the 140 drawings. The rest are in storage in museums all over the world and in private collections. It has always been very difficult to reproduce my father's drawings. His line is very thin and delicate. And in his books of reproductions the tendency has been to thicken the lines in order to merely make them visible. This has resulted in a certain harsh crudishness in which the delicacy of the line is lost. Though there are some very beautiful and dramatic drawings in All the Brave I have only reproduced the drawings I have in my collection. Even so, though the technology has improved greatly since 1939, the problem still persists, and I apologize for the quality of the reproductions.

Through Hemingway the director of New York's Museum of Modern Art, Alfred Barr, took an interest in the drawings, and encouraged by Ernesto and other Americans, notably Jay Allen and Herbert Matthews, my father decided to take his Ritz show to New York in 1938. Through the month of April all 140 drawings were shown at the museum. Hemingway wrote the catalog, there were numerous comparisons to Goya, and the show was a critical success.

All the Brave is the book of reproductions which was made of the drawings. Hemingway wrote three prefaces, Elliot Paul a running commentary, and Jay Allen the introduction. It was published by Modern Age in 1939. If you are curious about this book and would like to see what Hemingway wrote please click here.

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American Printmakers On-line Catalogue Raisonne Project: The Prints of Luis Quintanilla