Graphics from the civil war-era Spanish anarchist magazine 'Acracia'

Submitted by sherbu-kteer on June 20, 2019

Not sure where else to put this, and don't know if it's a good fit for the gallery section of the library...

I had some free time today so I spent it going through the scanned archives of the newspaper 'Acracia' and clipping some of the artwork and design elements. In English, I think a translation of Acracia would be 'acracy', as in 'lack of rule' - a-cracy, like an-archy. This paper was published out of Lleida, and one of the prime forces behind it was José Peirats, the author of the CNT in the Spanish Revolution. It was pretty resolutely opposed to CNT collaborationism and helped shore up anarchism in Lleida, where the POUM had more sway than the anarchists.

I don't know the artists behind each piece but I believe most of the surreal work was done by Antonio García Lamolla, who would emigrate to France and become a somewhat famous painter. At its best the art and design is incredible, very creative and also quite funny, substantially better than anything I've seen in modern anarchist papers! I have uploaded them here:

https://imgur.com/a/toHZenq

For some reason they've uploaded in reverse chronological order, so maybe try skipping to the end and going up. The quality was definitely better at the beginning and middle, by the end it was quite crude. Some more info on Acracia can be found in Chris Ealham's biography of Peirats which is where I got the idea to look for this stuff.

Ed

4 years 10 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Ed on June 21, 2019

sherbu-kteer

Not sure where else to put this, and don't know if it's a good fit for the gallery section of the library...

This would be a fantastic fit for the gallery. Do you think you would be able to make an 'Acracia' gallery page? Just to add the pictures and maybe a short description of what Acracia was in the introduction...

sherbu-kteer

4 years 10 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by sherbu-kteer on June 21, 2019

Sure, is there any way to add images in bulk? The image uploader on the create gallery page only lets me upload one at a time and seeing as there are 189 images to upload that might take a while.

Ed

4 years 10 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Ed on June 21, 2019

Unfortunately not, sorry. It is something we're hoping to sort out with the upgrade but so far we've just always done them one by one :(