Collection Guide
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Palau (Marta) prints, correspondence, and ephemera
0576
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Table of contents
Box 1
Correspondence from Marta Palau to Evelyn Vedro, photographs, curricula vitae, and other material 1965-2003
Box 1
Exhibition materials, calendars, and other ephemera 1965-1996
Box 2
Un Homenaje Artistico a Lázaro Cárdenas: 13 Serigrafías y 13 Textos 1981
Physical Description: [24] p. : ill., ports., music.
Language of Material: Spanish; Castilian.
A set of serigraphs originally exhibited at the Museo de Arte Moderno, Bosque de Chapultepec, Mexico, D.F., in 1981.
The following text was authored by Barbara Robinson, Boeckmann Center librarian at the USC Libraries, describing the prints
when they were exhibited at the USC Fisher Museum in 2009. Barbara Robinson also saved the captions created for the exhibition,
which transcribe and translate the text of each serigraph. Please contact Special Collections for access to these captions,
which are attached to the unpublished accession record for this collection.
This exhibition commemorates the centennial of the Mexican Revolution, and the bicentennial of Mexican Independence, with
a collaborative artistic homage to a great Mexican patriot and humanitarian.
Lázaro Cárdenas' presidency, from 1934 to 1940, coincided with the tragic years of the Spanish Civil War, that "great forewarning
of the advancement of fascism" in Europe. While most of the world, including the Americas, remained neutral during Spain's
upheaval, Cárdenas stood firm in his support of the Spanish Republic and in his offer of a new homeland for tens of thousands
fleeing the apocalypse of war. Spanish exile García Ascot affirms this in his exhibited text when he wrote "In a century
in which freedom has been taken from so many millions, this gesture alone gives [Cárdenas] a unique place in history."
In other areas of Latin America reception of Spanish refugees was significantly limited and rarely official; many governments
were sympathetic to the Axis powers. Some found temporary residences in South America countries, such as Chile, assisted by
poets Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral, or in the Caribbean, often as stepping stones to the United States.
Among those who found a warm welcome in Mexico were Spain's most illustrious artists, writers, cinematographers, musicians,
humanists and scientists. Eighty percent accepted Cárdenas' offer of citizenship and they forever influenced the cultural
and intellectual landscape of Mexico. Art historian Rodríquez Prampolini recalls in her exhibited text that "Cardenas not
only opened the doors of our country to the Spanish in need, but also to many Mexicans who for centuries had found them closed..."
Thirteen serigraphs by artist Marta Palau, herself a Spanish refugee, and thirteen texts by her friends pay tribute to the
late President for his courageous acts. They also honor the Mexican people for their generosity and hospitality to the refugees.
The exhibit in its totality is a unique historical document of different periods of Cárdenas' life, family photographs from
his youth in Michoacán, as a soldier during the Mexican Revolution, as a peripatetic President, to images taken prior to his
death in 1970.
The personal testimonies or anecdotes, often from childhood memories, describe his strength of character, accomplishments
and lasting influence on their lives. Tranquil scenes with Cárdenas in the Mexican countryside and optimism in post-Revolutionary
Mexico, contrast with first-hand accounts of the refugee experience in Europe: extreme misery in the French concentration
camps, rejection and pain of exile.
This exhibition was first shown in 1981 in the Museo de Arte Moderno, under the directorship of Fernando Gamboa, who served
as special envoy in Europe under Cárdenas, and whose text is among those exhibited. In 2000, on the thirtieth anniversary
of Cardenas' death, the exhibition was displayed in the Antiguo Palacio del Ayuntamiento. This 2010 exhibition is its first
in the United States.
This portfolio of prints had been cataloged bibliographically under the following call number in the USC Libraries integrated
library system: N6559.P35 A4 1981. The description from that catalog record was transferred to this finding aid and the catalog
record was deleted.