Málaga-Almería Road, 1937. La Desbandá (The Exodus)

Diana Dowek

From Sathurday, February, 14 at September, 3, 2026

Openning, Sathurday, February, 14, 2026, at 12pm

Through a documentary my daughter Nadia Saavedra sent me from Spain, where she lives, I learned about this crime against the people of Málaga, which occurred in February 1937. It is little known and little publicized internationally, unlike the bombing of Guernica by the Condor Legion in April 1937, immortalized by the brilliant artist Pablo Picasso.

My ideological principles have always been in favor of the Republic and its people. Therefore, this painful episode, so well depicted in photographs by Hasen Sise, assistant and companion of the admired Dr. Norman Bethune, hero of China, deeply affected me. This, along with the book "Las fotografías de la Desbandá / The Photographs of the Desbandá" (2017) by Professor Jesús Majada, prompted me to create more than twenty paintings about this monstrous event.

From a very young age, the Spanish Civil War was present in our songs and readings in Argentina; it was very close to our hearts. That's why these images moved me so deeply.

My tribute goes to those women, children, men, and elderly people —more than 100,000 in total— who fled Málaga, pursued by land, sea, and air by Nazis, Fascists, and Francoists, and above all to Dr. Norman Bethune, who reported what was happening, helped, transported some of the fleeing people, and contributed his blood transfusion team to this decimated population.

Dear migrants,

I am writing to you so that you may see and understand my works as a testament to your suffering, your search for a place in this unjust, inhumane world, where you can finally rest for a time, perhaps forever, or perhaps only for a passage through dangerous seas and mountains that may shelter you.

I offer you refuge in my works in these times of anger and rage. They are present as protagonists, as a mirror of this Odyssey.

These migrations are a cry of hope.

Diana Dowek

Diana Dowek (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1942) was part of the Postfiguración group between 1979 and 1983, along with Jorge Álvaro, Mildred Burton, Norberto Gómez, Elsa Soibelman, and Alberto Heredia. As an artist committed to Human Rights, she has helped organize various exhibitions on this theme.

She is part of Artistas Plásticos Solidarios (Plastic Artists in Solidarity) along with Luís F. Noé, León Ferrari, Ricardo Longhini, Adolfo Nigro, Juan C. Romero, and Ana Maldonado, and is a founding member of AAVRA, the Association of Visual Artists of the Argentine Republic.

Among his numerous accolades are the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Arts Fund in 2012 and the Grand Acquisition Prize for Painting at the National Salon of Visual Arts in 2015. In 2013, he published "Painting is a Battlefield," a book about his career and work, after receiving a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation.

Plus d'infos:

Diana Dowek

Diana Dowek - En el espejo de una odisea

Diana Dowek - Pensamiento de artista

Reportatge periodístic de 2020 sobre la Desbandá (La Sexta)

Reportatge periodístic de 2024, Informe Semanal (RTVE, La Desbandá, memoria de una huida)

Espais de memòria de la ruta Málaga-Almeria (Asociación Socio Cultural i Club Senderista La Desbandá)