Deaths of Castillo and Calvo Sotelo (Spanish Civil War) - - c. 1936, Lithograph.
Edition 20. Numbered 17/20 in pencil. Signed REF. in the stone, lower right.
Image size 10 3/8 x 14 1/8 inches (263 x 359 mm); sheet size 12 7/8 x 19 7/8 inches (327 x 505 mm).
A fine impression, on cream wove paper, with full margins (7/8 to 3 1/8 inches); a small loss in the top left sheet corner; a repaired tear (5/16 inch) in the bottom left sheet edge, well away from the image, otherwise in good condition. Very scarce.
On July 12, 1936, José Castillo, a member of the Socialist Party and lieutenant in the Assault Guards, a special police corps created to deal with urban violence, was murdered by a 'far-right' group in Madrid. The following day José Calvo Sotelo, the leader of the conservative opposition in the Cortes (Spanish parliament), was killed in revenge by Luis Cuenca, who was operating in a commando unit of the Civil Guard led by Captain Fernando Condés Romero. Condés was close to the Socialist leader Indalecio Prieto, and although there is no indication that Prieto was complicit in Cuenca's decision to shoot Calvo Sotelo, the assassination of a member of parliament aroused suspicions and strong reactions amongst the Center and the Right. Calvo Sotelo was the most prominent Spanish monarchist and had protested against what he viewed as an escalating anti-religious terror, expropriations, and hasty agricultural reforms, which he considered Bolshevist and Anarchist. He instead advocated the creation of a corporative state and declared that if such a state was fascist, he was also a fascist. He also declared that Spanish soldiers would be mad not to rise for Spain against Anarchy. In turn, the leader of the communists, Dolores Ibarruri, known as La Pasionaria, had vowed that Calvo Sotelo's speech would be his last speech in the Cortes. Although the Nationalist generals were already at advanced stages of planning an uprising, the event is seen by some as a catalyst for what followed.
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