A unique conserved newspaper art archive on view in Madrid

The just opened ABC Museum of Drawing & Illustration, in Madrid, showcases a truly unique conserved newspaper art archive, one of the best to be seen, in Europe. It also strives to nuture new talent in the digital media.

The blend of both old and new is the perfect example of how even when web-based drawing has its roots entrenched in the printed press. Spain's ABC newspaper, established at the turn of the previous century, not only kept the works it commissioned but has also held on to it all. Salvador Dalí and Juan Gris, among other famous Spanish painters, did work for the newspaper but some of the most noteworthy examples in this show are often by unknown artists who gave work for cover competitions, the heyday of ABC.

The museum is a converted beer factory can count itself as a treasure. The first temporary exhibit of ABC, entitled ‘The Iceberg Effect’, has nearly 350 works. They together represent just the tip of its main archive, totaling a whopping 200,000 pieces of art.The usual poster art panoply provides us a peep into the early 1900’s. The emphasis is on the then modern city life. Some of the pieces include finished oil paintings by Ramon Casas and Emilio Sala.

The showcase reveals how the old values of art were gradually giving way to those propagated by professional magazine illustrators. Increasingly, the action they portrayed was one for the story and for the moment. Of course, ‘standalone’ still played an important part. The likes of Daniel Vázquéz Díaz did come up with pencil portraits, and Francisco Sancha's produced studies of the Madrid suburbs, considered as part of a magazine. And there is a piece here, too, by, Maruja Mallo, considered one of Spain's greatest woman artists.

With passage of time and ravage of civil wars, the newspaper and magazine art has declined in importance. These days illustration is largely only called on for doing caricature and humor. How different the 1930s seem in comparison to now, not just formally but in generosity and breadth. 'The ABC Collection: The Iceberg Effect' continues at the museum until March 13, 2011,