A statue caught in Madrid's contested past

The Monument to Federico García Lorca, a piece of public art in Madrid, stands in the Plaza de Santa Ana in front of the Teatro Español. The bronze statue represents the poet and playwright, created by Julio López Hernández. The work was initiated in 1984 following a petition by Miguel Narros, who asked for the statue to mark the 50th anniversary of the first performance of the play Yerma. The statue was completed between 1984 and 1986 and was stored for about a decade at the Cuartel del Conde-Duque during reform works at its intended location.

The full body bronze statue shows the poet looking at the Teatro Español while holding a lark about to take off between his hands. Larks and nightingales are common motifs in his poems. The inscription on the monument reads 'Madrid, a federico garcía lorca'.

The statue remains a symbol of a polarized past. According to David Crocker, the statue is an emblem of the contested past where each day the Left puts a red kerchief on the neck of the statue, and someone from the Right comes later to take it off. In April 2011, during a vandal attack, the lark was removed from his hands.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons