Wounded Militiaman: The Recovery of an Irredeemable Painting

The painting is displayed at an angle under constant observation, which Revista Mercurio's critic likened to a patient who can now only be kept company. Francisco Mateos made Wounded Militiaman in a rush for the Spanish Republic's pavilion at the 1937 Paris Exposition, alongside Picasso's Guernica, on two of his own earlier canvases joined together. The reused materials have been reacting ever since, and the paint keeps coming away.

It wasn't shown after returning from Paris in 1938. The museum says the damage can't be restored without invention, so beside the original it shows generative AI images by artist Pilar Rosado recreating its 1937 appearance. You look from the flaking canvas to its digital double and back. Mercurio's critic asked whether the reconstruction "restores the militiaman or replaces him", and settled on reading it as one more interpretation.

It's one painting and its reconstruction, added to the collection's Civil War rooms along with Sim's war drawings, so it fits inside a visit there. It runs until 31 December.