The Guardian reports on José Luis Rey Vila, known as Sim, an anarchist illustrator who documented the Spanish Civil War from the frontlines in Catalonia. His bold, colorful sketches captured street battles, militias, nurses, and milicianas, and were widely reproduced in booklets and exhibitions, raising international awareness before Picasso's Guernica. After the war, Sim fell into obscurity and died in near-anonymity in 1983. Now, on the 90th anniversary of the conflict, Barcelona's Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC) is exhibiting 40 recently acquired Sim illustrations, highlighting his role as a key visual chronicler of the conflict.
This matters because it rescues a significant but overlooked artist from historical neglect, expanding the visual record of the Spanish Civil War beyond Picasso's iconic work. The exhibition underscores how frontline reportage by artists like Sim shaped global perceptions of the war, and raises questions about how political biases and exile can erase important cultural contributions. It also reflects a broader trend in museums to recover marginalized narratives and reassess the canon of war art.