Samaras on Len Fox and the Spanish Civil War
Artists from across Australia and the CAM community know well the biennial acquisitive award exhibition, the Len Fox Painting Award, given to a living Australian artist to commemorate the life and work of Emanuel Phillips Fox (1865–1915), the uncle of E.P Fox and partner of Award benefactor Mona Fox. But who was Len Fox and what was his relationship with the Spanish Civil War? In the course of his research on Australians fighting in the Spanish Civil War, writer Michael Samaras contacted CAM and we have invited him to shed some light on Len Fox in whose name this important exhibition is presented.
Fox was a man of many talents and an extensive range of interests. He wrote poetry, produced art, completed historical investigations and was, for many years, an active member of the Communist Party of Australia. He worked as a journalist, writing for the CPA’s Tribune and as the editor of Common Cause, the paper of the Miners’ Federation. In 1955 he married Mona Brand, whose bequest established the Len Fox Painting Award.
Jim McNeill, a Port Kembla steelworker, was one of the Australians who went to fight for the Spanish Republic. McNeill was a man of political convictions. To get to Spain he stowed away in the bowels of a meat ship and emerged, five weeks later, haggard and emaciated, to trek over the Pyrenees to join the fight. He was machine-gunned in the Battle of the Ebro but survived and made it back to Australia. A few months later, the Second World War began and he immediately enlisted in the 2nd AIF to again fight fascism.
Len Fox admired Jim McNeill and what he stood for. Fox saw him as a “fine person, softly-spoken, a warm and generous friend”. As the editor of Common Cause, Fox published McNeill’s memories of his time in Adelaide, campaigning for a better deal for the unemployed during the Great Depression. After McNeill died in 1976, Fox wrote: “To think of him is to think of the fight against fascism, not only in Spain but also here in Australia.”
In the 1990s, more than fifty years after the Spanish Civil War had ended, Len Fox was again working for the cause and joined a committee to raise funds to establish a memorial to the Australian International Brigadiers, including his friend Jim McNeill. This was a success and a memorial was erected in Canberra’s Lennox Gardens.
In January 1939, while McNeill was steaming across the Indian Ocean on his way home from Spain, Fox published a poem in tribute to the heroism of the Australian International Brigadiers.
RETURN OF THE INTERNATIONAL BRIGADES
We hold our heads high reading of these men
Who marched, laughing, against the black battalions of death
And saved Madrid— though they alone know how — in the hours when
Liberty had to be fought for in the last ditch with the last breath.
We bend our heads low, remembering others whose eyes
Will never see gums over the lonely camp again.
Stretching their strange limbs to the Southern skies —
Barry, Baynham, Hynes — and all who died for liberty in Spain.
The Brigades come home, their crowded chapter ended,
Men branded with scars won defending freedom's flame
On Spain's red soil as on Eureka's hill.
We turn from these Australians who defended
In far lands our heritage to find the same
Proud spirit burning at Port Kembla still.
Michael Samaras
March 2025