Óscar Domínguez in Bratislava in 1949: Between Paris and Czechoslovakia, on the Border Between Political Socialist Realism and the Freedom of Expression

Abstract

One of the most important Spanish painters of the 20th century, Óscar Domínguez, had a relationship with Czechoslovakia, which is now the Czech and Slovak Republics. He became member of the School of Paris. After the Second World War the Czechoslovak government organized a great exhibition in Prague of Spanish artists who were resident in Paris at that time. Domínguez was invited to organize a one man exhibition in Prague, Olomouc, and Bratislava. His exhibition was presented here just at the time the communist theory of “socialist realism” was being introduced into Czechoslovakia and other styles and movements were being depreciated and marginalized. We can thus consider his exhibition in Bratislava as the last exhibition of the democratic period between 1945 and 1949