Bartolí i Guiu, Josep
Josep Bartolí i Guiu (1910–1995) is one of the most prolific cartoonists of the Spanish Civil War exile. In Spain, he was raised among anarchists and later affiliated with the anarchist group Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI). Before the Spanish Civil War, he was one of the founders of the Socialist Cartoonist Union (UGT) and illustrated articles against Nazism in Última Hora (Barcelona). During the war, Bartolí drew war posters and defended Zaragoza on the frontline with Caridad Mercader, the Cuban communist.2 After the war, Bartolí escaped French concentration camps and the Gestapo and arrived in México while his brother remained in France.3 Once in Mexico, Bartolí wrote to the exiled Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia requesting to leave the party because he had been accused of belonging to the POUM (Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification). This was probably because Narcís Molins i Fàbrega, one of the POUM’s leaders, was his best friend. With him, Bartolí published his drawings about the French concentration camps, Campos de concentración, 1939–194? (1944). Bartolí also published illustrations about the war in the socialist exile periodical Mundo. Socialismo y Libertad in Mexico
In the 1950s and 1960s, Bartolí published hundreds of black and white editorial cartoons in the New York antifascist periodicals Ibérica and España Libre. Compared to his previous drawings of concentration camps with many dark strokes, exile caricatures are minimalist and straightforward, with elegant forms and simple continuous lines. They are conceptual drawings that clearly expressed his authority as an editorial cartoonist, proven by the fact that his art was prominently displayed in these periodicals.
I thank Bernice Bromberg, Josep Bartolí’s widow, for her authorization to preserve and publish Bartolí’s work. See: http://129.7.224.3/exhibits/show/fighting-fascist-spain--the-ex/graphic-art-cartoons/josep-bartol---i-guiu
Also, see:
Feu, “Aesthetically Resilient: Josep Bartolí Guiu’s Political Cartoons in España Libre (1939-1977 NYC), a Spanish Civil War Exile Newspaper,” Debra D. Andrist (ed). The Body, Subject & Subjected. The Representation of the Body Itself, Illness, Injury, Treatment & Death in Spain and Indigenous and Hispanic American Art & Literature. Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press, 2016.
Feu, “The Will to Empire: Josep Bartolí’s Editorial Humor in New York Paper Ibérica.” in Americanized Spanish Culture: Stories and Storytellers of Dislocated Empires, eds Christopher J. Castañeda and Miguel Bota. New York: Routledge, 2022.
Froment, Aurélien (Aurel). (2020). Josep Le Film.
Garcia, Laurence. La retirada. Éxodo y exilio de los republicanos españoles (Trad. Isabel Pérez van Kappel). Madrid: El mono libre, 2020.
How to cite the exibit: "Josep Bartolí" in Montse Feu. "Fighting Fascist Spain --The Exhibits." Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage Digital Collections. http://usldhrecovery.uh.edu/exhibits/show/fighting-fascist-spain--the-ex. Accessed [DATE].
