Spanish exile

The first thing I look for in this room is a small sheet: the note Ramón Gaya took from a Tintoretto in Venice, in pastel, in 1953. It fits in the hand and carries a long journey. Gaya reached Veracruz on the Sinaia in June 1939, and on that same ship came José Bardasano; Antonio Rodríguez Luna landed that year with his exoduses half painted. But the exile had begun earlier: in 1937 the Mexique brought nearly five hundred children whom Cárdenas sent to Morelia, to a school named España-México. And it went on afterwards: Peyrí arrived as a boy in 1941; Souto in 1942, after Havana and New York; Mingorance in 1943, on his way to Monterrey; Vela Zanetti took twenty Dominican years and painted here between 1957 and 1959. I like seeing them together: watercolour, pastel, oil on paper, with the lightness of those who have already carried too much. — S. A.