A photograph of Antonio Machado from the Civil War comes to light

Segovia (EFE).- The researcher Aku Estebaranz has found an unpublished photograph of Antonio Machado taken in Valencia in December 1936, which was unknown until now and which is considered one of the highest quality images of the poet preserved, taken during the Civil war.

In a press conference at the San Quirce Royal Academy of History and Art in Segovia, the scholar explained that he found the photograph by chance at the end of 2021 while analyzing the archive of the Salamanca Historical Memory Documentary Center.

Although he was looking for material from the German reporter on the Republican side, Walter Reuter, he came across this image by chance, in which Antonio Machado can be seen on a terrace of the villa in Rocafort (Valencia), where he took refuge during the Civil war.

In the photograph, Machado talks with a journalist who interviews him for the newspaper Fragua Social, accompanied by his brother José, his sister-in-law Matea Monedero, one of his nieces (possibly María) and his mother Ana Ruiz.

The positive found, of high quality for the time, bears the seal of the author of the photo, Joaquín Sanchis Serrano “Finezas”, but the image was not published in the newspaper nor was it in the photographer’s personal file.

Another “little known” image of Antonio Machado

As Estebaranz has explained, the particularity of this image is that “Antonio Machado’s iconographic sources are quite limited” and, although during the civil war he was the protagonist of many portraits, these are not “of quality” because they are often reproductions of the images that appeared in the press.

Estebaranz has also presented this Thursday another photograph rescued by him, which is not unpublished but “little known”, despite the fact that at the time it was published in various media, such as the magazines “Ahora” or “Crónica”, from the one that was cover

The poet can be seen in it, with the cane hanging from his arm and his fist raised, while he sings the hymn “La Joven Guardia” at the presidency table of the National Congress of Unified Socialist Youth, held in January 1937 in Valencia.

In the photo you can also see the leader of the Communist Party Francisco Díaz, Dolores Ibárruri (“La pasionaria”), the then Minister of Education Jesús Hernández, the mayor of Valencia, Caro Coloma, and a “very young” Santiago Carrillo, who presided over the table of the Executive Committee.

Coinciding with the 84th anniversary of the death of Antonio Machado on February 22, the researcher has shared both images with the Royal Academy of History and Art of San Quirce in Segovia and both copies will be exhibited at the Antonio Machado House-Museum in the provincial capital.