Sim Acquisition, Drawing and War

Soldiers, planes in combat, bombings and civilians in retreat: José Luis Rey Vila drew them while the Civil War was happening, almost always from life, in fast pencil or charcoal lines with barely any colour. He started signing himself Sim during the war, a name linked to his friendship with the philosopher Simone Weil.

The museum bought nearly a hundred of these drawings in 2024, and 41 of them are on show in Room 68, within the collection's Civil War rooms. You get quick sketches rather than finished pictures, and the titles fill in the rest: Militiaman with a Pipe, The Death of the Militiaman, Wounded Militiawoman and Soldier.

It's a small, austere room that fits easily into a visit to the Civil War galleries, with Francisco Mateos's damaged painting Wounded Militiaman shown alongside. Expect almost no colour and no heroics. It runs until 8 November.