Profiles
Felicia Browne was a British artist and lost her life during the Spanish Civil War. She was the first British combatant to be killed and the only British woman to take part in the fighting, and since then her story has been forgotten, until now…
Sep 22, 2016 - 12:05 PM
Two daughters of Spanish exiles are recovering the memory of Felicia Browne.
Felicia Browne was a British artist and lost her life during the Spanish Civil War. She was the first British combatant to be killed and the only British woman to take part in the fighting, and since then her story has been forgotten, until now…
Sep 22, 2016 - 12:05 PM
Two Spanish artists, daughters of exiles, are trying to recover her place in history via an ambitious project. Felicia Browne was a British artist who enrolled as a volunteer in the republican army at the start of the Spanish Civil War in the summer of 1936.
She lost her life on her first mission, at the age of 32, and despite she was the only British woman to be killed in action, and the only British women volunteer to join the republicans, she is yet to be honoured.
Professor Tom Buchanan from Oxford University rediscovered her letters and drawings during the 90’s. Now two artists, daughters of republican exiles, are commemorating the 80th anniversary of her death with an ambitious project called ‘Through An Artist’s Eye’ – a visual and poetic token on her life and work.
Pictures, mounts and poems
The visual artist Sonia Boué and the poet Jenny Rivarola have created pictures, mounts and poems which guide the spectator on a narrative voyage in multiple stages. The project is financed by the Arts Council England, and counts with the support of the Instituto Cervantes and Surrey County Council, in collaboration with All Saints Weston, Cañada Blanch Centre, International Brigade Memorial Trust and the Marx Memorial Library.
‘Through An Artist’s Eye’ includes different activities, among them an exhibition, a seminar and workshop on poetry and art.
The events will take place at several venues in London between September 30 and October 29. Professor Tom Buchanan, the discoverer of the figure of Felicia Browne, will collaborate with these activities from an academic point of view.
Sonia Boué has centred a large part of her work on the drawings made by Felicia Browne, doing so by using the same materials which she used: graphite and vegetable carbon. Meanwhile, Jenny Rivarola has detained on her personality and her dramatics which flow from her letters. Among her influences and a contemporary one of the most iconic poets in Spanish literature: Federico García Lorca.
Felicia Browne, artist and activist
Felicia Browne was born in 1904 into an accommodated family in London. She studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and obtained a scholarship which allowed her to move to Berlin in 1928 to study sculpture. There she was witness to the rise in Nazism, an experience which affected her deeply and then as a consequence the enrolled as a member of the British Communist Party at the start of the 30’s, after her return to London.
Under the control of the MI5, Felicia Browne drove to Spain in her car in July 1936 with her friend and party companion Edith Bone. It is thought their intention was attend the Olympic Games in Barcelona and she had organised an alternative the Berlin national-socialist Olympic Games.
Felicia Browne in 1936
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She lost her life on her first mission, at the age of 32, and despite she was the only British woman to be killed in action, and the only British women volunteer to join the republicans, she is yet to be honoured.
Professor Tom Buchanan from Oxford University rediscovered her letters and drawings during the 90’s. Now two artists, daughters of republican exiles, are commemorating the 80th anniversary of her death with an ambitious project called ‘Through An Artist’s Eye’ – a visual and poetic token on her life and work.
Pictures, mounts and poems
The visual artist Sonia Boué and the poet Jenny Rivarola have created pictures, mounts and poems which guide the spectator on a narrative voyage in multiple stages. The project is financed by the Arts Council England, and counts with the support of the Instituto Cervantes and Surrey County Council, in collaboration with All Saints Weston, Cañada Blanch Centre, International Brigade Memorial Trust and the Marx Memorial Library.
‘Through An Artist’s Eye’ includes different activities, among them an exhibition, a seminar and workshop on poetry and art.
The events will take place at several venues in London between September 30 and October 29. Professor Tom Buchanan, the discoverer of the figure of Felicia Browne, will collaborate with these activities from an academic point of view.
Sonia Boué has centred a large part of her work on the drawings made by Felicia Browne, doing so by using the same materials which she used: graphite and vegetable carbon. Meanwhile, Jenny Rivarola has detained on her personality and her dramatics which flow from her letters. Among her influences and a contemporary one of the most iconic poets in Spanish literature: Federico García Lorca.
Felicia Browne, artist and activist
Felicia Browne was born in 1904 into an accommodated family in London. She studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and obtained a scholarship which allowed her to move to Berlin in 1928 to study sculpture. There she was witness to the rise in Nazism, an experience which affected her deeply and then as a consequence the enrolled as a member of the British Communist Party at the start of the 30’s, after her return to London.
Under the control of the MI5, Felicia Browne drove to Spain in her car in July 1936 with her friend and party companion Edith Bone. It is thought their intention was attend the Olympic Games in Barcelona and she had organised an alternative the Berlin national-socialist Olympic Games.
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