El Capa requeté who photographed the Civil War from the rear of the rebel side

That July 19, 1936, just a few hours after the coup arrived in the Peninsula led by Franco, Sebastián Taberna woke up soon, very soon, to the sound of the bugle, in Pamplona. Surely, the fact that he turned 29 that day was a thought that remained hidden in his consciousness, because what was presented to him would change the course of history.. He soon enlisted as a volunteer in the requetés, from where he would fight alongside the rebel side, but he would also immortalize the war with his Leica..

More than 3,600 snapshots, human, direct, not propaganda, give a good account of what life was like in the trenches.. Now, the Cerralbo Museum hosts an extensive sample of them in the aptly named exhibition Sebastián Taberna: the face of War. In it, the viewer will appreciate unpublished images taken by the Navarrese photographer between the front and the rear thanks to the dedication to conservation carried out by the Taberna Belzunce family..

Taberna was a self-taught young man out of obligation: “At that time, it was impossible to find formal training in Pamplona on photography, especially with compact cameras,” explains Pablo Larraz, curator of the exhibition.. He met his neighbor, later partner, Nicolás Ardanaz, a photographer with a certain impact on post-war traditional photography.. “Both acquired French, English and German graphic magazines and took models and learned to develop,” notes the rural doctor and expert in the oral history and photography of Carlism..

Luckily for the young man, his family owned a pioneering company in the modernization and distribution of bread, so on the trip through Europe he made in 1933, when he arrived in Germany, he became fascinated by the possibilities of having a Leica hanging. on the shoulder. It was the best photographic machine in the world and Taberna wanted to have one, but it was not easy. Two years had to pass until the young man acquired his Leica, model 3-A.

His photographic desire accompanies him

His first reports focused on daily life in Pamplona, as well as the San Fermín festivities of 1936, which ended just before the Civil War began.. “Taberna had no previous political affiliation, but he decided to enroll as a volunteer in the requeté, basically for religious motivation, because he was a believing man and considered it his duty, and influenced by his friend Ardanaz, a close fervent Carlist friend,” he explains. the curator of the exhibition.

When the time came, in the Plaza del Castillo, Taberna carried out what was possibly the first report of the volunteers who revolted against the Republic in Pamplona, around six in the morning on July 19.. Although a few days passed without graphic documents attesting to what happened, the following news from Taberna places him marching towards Madrid with the intention of taking the capital.. Once they saw that this would not be possible, at least in the short term, they headed to Somosierra and Navafría, from where their great chronicle of the Civil War begins..

“What Taberna photographs is what he sees, what he feels and what he lives. He is not a professional photographer or official reporter, but a volunteer combatant who also takes photos,” Larraz introduces.. His photography does not have a propaganda purpose, but in the snapshots he captures everyday life from an artistic perspective, even.

Due to his work in the family baking company, Taberna knew how to drive, so the military command appointed him as a truck driver with which he carried out liaison and maintenance work.. “He will be making trips with a Ford truck between the front line and nearby towns for many months,” adds the expert.. In this way, he took advantage of a trip to Pamplona to take all his photographic material: buckets, enlarger, developing paper, liquids, lights, lamps.. “He put everything in two drawers that accompanied him throughout the Civil War in his truck,” Larraz himself emphasizes..

A laboratory in the front

Taberna began to reveal something unprecedented on the front line that was only possible thanks to his improvised portable laboratory.. “Somosierra and Navafría is the time he likes the most.”. Photograph spontaneous, everyday life, from a direct and intimate view. We see people on the ranch, writing letters and reading the ones they receive,” adds the commissioner.. Far from being a glorious or warlike photograph, it is deeply human: the cold and the heat, the rags of the combatants' clothing, are the counterimage of that aura that is assumed to be a person on the battle front..

“He is a very versatile photographer because he immortalizes everyday scenes, portraits, ethnographic scenes and takes experimental photography in very extreme lighting conditions,” characterizes Larraz.. This stark realism of his work can be seen, above all, in three great reports: the taking of the port of Navafría and the evacuation of the wounded; the conquest of Sigüenza, considered his best report; and the battle of Guadalajara, where he witnesses the advance of the Italians and the taking of several towns in the area.

The objective was not only set in war scenes, but also in the rear. This is demonstrated by their snapshots of the coexistence between the civilian population and the combatant volunteers, the daily routine, the campaign masses, which they took great care to do in the requetés, and the celebrations of the holidays, for example.. These photographs also fulfilled another purpose: they encouraged the families of the volunteers..

“Taberna photographed his fellow soldiers, and when they wrote home they sent the photos. He made the copies himself and gave them to them,” observes Larraz. Everything changed in the last period of the War. The National Cartographic Institute remained in Republican hands, so the General Staff of Burgos, in the area where the uprising had triumphed, commissioned it to carry out work to map some areas.. “He moved to the border with France, especially Huesca. We barely have any evidence of those photos, but they were panoramic, with a topographical sense,” says the specialist..

Trauma, silence, recovery

Thus, the bulk of Taberna's work is located between 1936 and 1937, a time in which he was on the front line.. A work that, on the other hand, remained silent for decades. “When he returned home he had such a bad memory of the experience of the War that he kept all those photographs after classifying them,” says Larraz.. Some of them, the most artistic, are positive and stored in albums for personal use..

For 80 years, these images were well preserved, but without coming to light. Meanwhile, Taberna continued taking photographs, although never professionally.. Everything was now very far from his reports on the front, “despite the extraordinary qualities he had for it,” says the curator of the exhibition at the Cerralbo Museum.. Some time after his death, in 1986, his daughter was well aware of the artistic and historical value of those photographs.. The time had come to recover that piece of history. And since then, until today, Madrid welcomes this very unusual vision of the Civil War from the perspective of a volunteer from the rebel side..