Inés

I know my grandfather took the portrait; his familiar signature is recognisable on the right-hand side of the image. It intrigues me to imagine what might have happened. Did Leopoldo touch the sleeve of Francisco at a certain moment? I know he must have stood in front of Franco and made this image, probably spoke to him, asked him to turn his face a little more to the right perhaps to get a flattering portrait? Where did he take it, at Franco’s residence, or in his own studio in the centre of Madrid?

I speculate. The security around El Jefe will be intense. People fuss around him, making sure all his needs are taken care of. The picture will be taken in El Pardo under maximum security. Leopoldo arrives under escort to prepare his equipment in a room set aside for the purpose. He is very carefully dressed in a dark suit and his habitual silver-topped cane, an established, respectable middle-aged man entrusted with the care of El Jefe’s image. He is well prepared for the task.

I don’t know enough about Leopoldo to sense his political leanings entirely, but the 1930s seemed to change things for him in his life and work. Gone are the creative, pictorial, carefully composited images of the early years. He is now an established studio portraitist in Spain’s capital city, but the difficulties of the time have meant that as an immigrant from Venezuela he must prove his worth. He moves from the red zone to the nationalist zone on the strength of a report from his landlady who states that he has “observed good socio-political behaviour.” [i] There is evidence of a testimony from him in 1939 that the war has taken him by surprise. I immerse myself in reading about the tensions of that time to understand the need he may have felt to protect his family and at what cost.

[i] Ayuntamiento de Madrid, Document 28-311-39, November 16, 1939. Archivo de la Villa, Madrid. Translation author’s own.