Thinking outside the frame of francoism: María Campo Alange as a feminist art critic

Abstract

This article explores María Campo Alange’s (1902-1986) work as an art critic. Her writings have been mostly ignored in scholarly literature, perhaps because they do not conform to the dominant trends of Spanish art criticism of her time. Such a marginal position, I contend, was related to Campo Alange’s unique personality, but also to her precarious situation as a woman intellectual within the context of Francoism, which banned women from participating in the public sphere. Distancing herself from the “trending topics” of the time allowed her to find her own space and to identify a blind spot in the mainstream narrative of Spanish art criticism: the contribution of women artists to modern art.