Art: End of an Exile

In 1937, while the Civil War in Spain ground grimly on, the great names of Spanish art assembled a show at the International Exposition in Paris to demonstrate their solidarity with the beleaguered republic. Picasso was represented by Guernica, his agonized portrayal of a small town obliterated by German dive bombers. From Miro came The Reaper, a ferocious antiwar mural that has since been lost. Towering above the other works in the Spanish pavilion was a graceful, 41-ft.-high stalk of flowing concrete, by a lanky Castilian sculptor who had been commissioned by the...