María Paz Jiménez (1909–1975)

Gender, ethnicity and class in the archive of a modern artist of Francoism

Bibliographic Data

ID19224460
AuthorsAne Lekuona Mariscal (0000-0002-3478-6158, University of the Basque Country, corresponding author), Haizea Barcenilla García (0000-0001-5486-4320, University of the Basque Country)
Year2026
Volume27
Issue2
Pages149-171
Publication date2026-04-03
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Spanish Cultural Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1463-6204 • E-ISSN: 1469-9818
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14636204.2026.2664895
OpenAlexW7162809611
LanguageHU
References cited13

This article explores the construction of artistic authorship under Francoism through the case of María Paz Jiménez (1909-1975), a pioneering Spanish abstract painter whose work and career have been largely excluded from hegemonic Spanish and Basque art historical narratives. Rather than treating Jiménez as an exception, the article approaches her trajectory as an opportunity to reshape a new historiography, offering a broader understanding of the artistic field of the time and providing a framework to rethink the canon of the artistic period. Drawing on a fragmented and hybrid archive, the study adopts a feminist and cultural studies methodology that conceives the archive as a relational whole. This approach allows for an analysis of how class, gender and ethnicity intersected in the artist’s habitus and shaped her strategies of self-presentation, negotiation and agency within her cultural system. Particular attention is paid to the role of affect, sociability and performativity in Jiménez’s navigation of different artistic and institutional contexts, as well as to the ways in which her Romani identity appears, is camouflaged or strategically mobilized across visual and textual materials. By reading these archival materials as parts of a “subject”, the paper argues that practices often considered private are inherently political for the construction of artistic identity

Ethnic group · Ethnography · Working class · History of Education in Spain · Spanish History and Politics · Spanish Literature and Culture Studies

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