Guernica (Picasso)

1937 oil painting by Pablo Picasso

Guernica

Artist| Pablo Picasso
Year| 1937
Medium| Oil on canvas
Movement| Cubism, Surrealism
Dimensions| 349.3 cm × 776.6 cm (137.4 in × 305.5 in)
Location| Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain

Guernica (Spanish: [ɡeɾˈnika]; Basque: [ɡernika]) is a large 1937 oil painting on canvas by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso.[1][2] It is one of his best-known works, regarded by many art critics as the most moving and powerful anti-war painting in history.[3] It is exhibited in the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid.[4]

The grey, black, and white painting, which is 3.49 meters (11 ft 5 in) tall and 7.76 meters (25 ft 6 in) across, portrays the suffering wrought by violence and chaos. Prominent in the composition are a gored horse, a bull, screaming women, a dead baby, a dismembered soldier, and flames.

Picasso painted Guernica at his home in Paris in response to the 26 April 1937 bombing of Guernica, a Basque Country town in northern Spain which was bombed by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy at the request of the Spanish Nationalists. Upon completion, Guernica was exhibited at the Spanish display at the 1937 Paris International Exposition, and then at other venues around the world. The touring exhibition was used to raise funds for Spanish war relief.[5] The painting soon became famous and widely acclaimed, and it helped bring worldwide attention to the Spanish Civil War.

## Contents

* 1 Commission
* 2 Historical context
* 2.1 Bombing of 26 April 1937
* 2.2 Guernica's aftermath
* 3 Creation
* 4 Composition
* 5 Symbolism and interpretations
* 6 Exhibition
* 6.1 1937 Paris International Exhibition
* 6.2 European tour
* 6.3 American tour
* 7 Establishment in Spain
* 8 Tapestry at the United Nations
* 9 Significance and legacy
* 10 See also
* 11 References and sources
* 12 External links

## Commission[edit]

In January 1937, while Pablo Picasso was living in Paris on Rue des Grands Augustins, he was commissioned by the Spanish Republican government to create a large mural for the Spanish pavilion at the 1937 Paris World's Fair. This piece was to help raise awareness of the war and raise necessary funds.[6] Picasso, who had last visited Spain in 1934 and would never return, was the Honorary Director-in-Exile of the Prado Museum.[7]

Picasso worked somewhat dispassionately from January until late April on the project's initial sketches, which depicted his perennial theme of an artist's studio.[1] Then, immediately upon hearing reports of the 26 April bombing of Guernica, poet Juan Larrea visited Picasso's home to urge him to make the bombing his subject.[1] Days later, on 1 May, Picasso read George Steer's eyewitness account of the attack, which originally had been published in both The Times and The New York Times on 28 April, and abandoned his initial idea. Acting on Larrea's suggestion, Picasso began sketching a series of preliminary drawings for Guernica.[8]

## Historical context[edit]

See also: Bombing of Guernica; Spanish Civil War; and Spanish Civil War, 1937

### Bombing of 26 April 1937[edit]

During the Spanish Civil War, the Republican forces were made up of assorted factions such as communists, socialists, anarchists, and others with differing goals. Yet they were united in their opposition to the Nationalists, led by General Francisco Franco, who sought a return to pre-Republican Spain based on law, order, and traditional Catholic values.[9]

Guernica, a town in the province of Biscay in Basque Country, was seen as the northern bastion of the Republican resistance movement and the center of Basque culture. This added to its significance as a target.[10] Around 4:30 p.m. on Monday, 26 April 1937, warplanes of the Nazi Germany Condor Legion, commanded by Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, bombed Guernica for about two hours.[11][10] In his journal for 30 April 1937, von Richthofen wrote:

> When the first Junkers squadron arrived, there was smoke already everywhere (from the VB [VB/88] which had attacked with 3 aircraft); nobody would identify the targets of roads, bridge, and suburb, and so they just dropped everything right into the center. The 250s toppled a number of houses and destroyed the water mains. The incendiaries now could spread and become effective. The materials of the houses: tile roofs, wooden porches, and half-timbering resulted in complete annihilation. Most inhabitants were away because of a holiday; a majority of the rest left town immediately at the beginning [of the bombardment]. A small number perished in shelters that were hit."[12]

Other accounts state that since it was Guernica's market day, its inhabitants were congregated in the center of town. When the bombardment began they were unable to escape because the roads were full of debris and the bridges leading out of town had been destroyed.

Guernica in ruins, 1937

Guernica was a quiet village 10 kilometers from the front lines, and in-between the front lines and Bilbao, the capital of Bizkaia (Biscay). But any Republican retreat towards Bilbao, or any Nationalist advance towards Bilbao, had to pass through Guernica.[13] Wolfram von Richthofen's war diary entry for 26 April 1937 states, "K/88 [the Condor Legion bomber force] was targeted at Guernica in order to halt and disrupt the Red withdrawal which has to pass through here." Under the German concept of tactical bombing, areas that were routes of transportation and troop movement were considered legitimate military targets. The following day, Richthofen wrote in his war diary, "Guernica burning".[14]

The nearest military target of any consequence was a war product factory on Guernica's outskirts, but it went through the attack unscathed. Thus, the attack was widely condemned as a terror bombing.[15][16]

### Guernica's aftermath[edit]

Because a majority of Guernica's men were away, fighting on behalf of the Republicans, at the time of the bombing the town was populated mostly by women and children.[17] These demographics are reflected in Guernica. As Rudolf Arnheim writes, for Picasso: "The women and children make Guernica the image of innocent, defenseless humanity victimized. Also, women and children have often been presented by Picasso as the very perfection of mankind. An assault on women and children is, in Picasso's view, directed at the core of mankind."[10]

The Times journalist George Steer, a Basque and Republican sympathizer, propelled this event onto the international scene and brought it to Pablo Picasso's attention. Steer's eyewitness account was published on 28 April in both The Times and The New York Times, and on the 29th it appeared in L'Humanité, a French Communist daily. Steer wrote:

> Guernica, the most ancient town of the Basques and the centre of their cultural tradition, was completely destroyed yesterday afternoon by insurgent air raiders. The bombardment of this open town far behind the lines occupied precisely three hours and a quarter, during which a powerful fleet of aeroplanes consisting of three types of German types, Junkers and Heinkel bombers, did not cease unloading on the town bombs weighing from 1,000 lbs. downwards and, it is calculated, more than 3,000 two-pounder aluminium incendiary projectiles. The fighters, meanwhile, plunged low from above the centre of the town to machinegun those of the civilian population who had taken refuge in the fields."[17]

Picasso lived in Paris during the German occupation during World War II. A widely repeated story is that a German officer once asked him, upon seeing a photo of Guernica in Picasso's apartment, "Did you do that?", and Picasso responded, "No, you did."[18]

## Creation[edit]

> On 11 May the canvas is ready, and immediately the composition is laid down as a linear structure that covers the whole surface. Work on the mural is accompanied by more than thirty studies for the details. The rough plan exists from the beginning, but it takes three weeks before the picture receives its final form. The bull's head remains where it was first put, but the body is turned around to the left. On 20 May the horse lifts its head. The body of the soldier stretched on the floor from left to right changes position on 4 June, then head and hand take on their finished shape.

> At the last moment the artist makes one decisive adjustment: the drama first took place on a street with burning houses in the background. Now, suddenly, the diagonals are accentuated, and thereby space becomes ambiguous, unreal, inside and outside at the same time. The lamp is hung over the horse's head, looking on the dreadful scene like a wide-open eye. The construction is strengthened, the mural more strongly integrated in Sert's architecture. Into the hand of the dying soldier, next to the broken sword, Picasso puts the little flower of hope.

> The picture was finished about mid-June. Hundreds of thousands of exhibition-goers wandered by, looking on it as a wall decoration, just as Europe wandered by the human drama of the Spanish Civil War—as if it were a matter concerning only the inhabitants of the peninsula. They disregarded the warning, did not understand that democracy on the whole continent was at stake.

W. J. H. B. Sandberg, Daedalus, 1960 [19]

Guernica was painted using a matte house paint specially formulated at Picasso's request to have the least possible gloss.[1] American artist John Ferren assisted him in preparing the monumental canvas,[20] and photographer Dora Maar, who had been working with Picasso since mid-1936 photographing his studio and teaching him the technique of cameraless photography,[21] documented its creation. Apart from their documentary and publicity value, Maar's photographs "helped Picasso to eschew color and give the work the black-and-white immediacy of a photograph", according to art historian John Richardson.[1]

Picasso, who rarely allowed strangers into his studio to watch him work, admitted influential visitors to observe his progress on Guernica, believing that the publicity would help the antifascist cause.[1] As his work on the mural progressed, Picasso explained: "The Spanish struggle is the fight of reaction against the people, against freedom. My whole life as an artist has been nothing more than a continuous struggle against reaction and the death of art. How could anybody think for a moment that I could be in agreement with reaction and death? ... In the panel on which I am working, which I shall call Guernica, and in all my recent works of art, I clearly express my abhorrence of the military caste which has sunk Spain in an ocean of pain and death."[22]

Picasso worked on the painting for 35 days, and finished it on 4 June 1937.[1]

## Composition[edit]

The scene occurs within a room where, on the left, a wide-eyed bull with a tail suggesting rising smoke stands over a grieving woman holding a dead child in her arms. A horse falls in agony in the center of the room, with a large gaping hole in its side, as if it had just been run through by a spear or javelin. The horse appears to be wearing chain mail armor, decorated with vertical tally marks arranged in rows.

A dead and dismembered soldier lies under the horse. The hand of his severed right arm grasps a shattered sword, from which a flower grows, and the open palm of his left hand contains a stigma, a symbol of martyrdom derived from the stigmata of Christ. A bare light bulb in the shape of an all-seeing eye blazes over the suffering horse's head.

To the horse's upper right the head and extended right arm of a frightened female figure appears to have floated into the room through a window, and she witnesses the scene. In her right hand she carries a flame-lit lamp, and holds it near the bare bulb. From the right, below the witness, an awe-struck woman staggers towards the center, looking into the blazing light bulb with a blank stare.

Daggers that suggest screaming have replaced the tongues of the horse, the bull, and the grieving woman. To the bull's right a dove appears on a cracked wall through which bright light from the outside shines.

On the far right a fourth woman, her arms raised in terror, her wide open mouth and thrown back head echoing the grieving woman's, is entrapped by fire from above and below. Her right hand suggests the shape of an airplane.

A dark wall with an open door defines the right side of the room.

Two "hidden" images formed by the horse appear in Guernica:[23]

* The horse's nostrils and upper teeth can also be seen as a human skull facing left and slightly downward.
* A bull appears to gore the horse from underneath. The bull's head is formed mainly by the horse's entire front leg which has the knee on the ground. The leg's knee cap forms the head's nose. A horn appears within the horse's breast. The bull's tail forms the image of a flame with smoke rising from it, seemingly appearing in a window created by the lighter shade of gray surrounding it.

## Symbolism and interpretations[edit]

Interpretations of Guernica vary widely and contradict one another. This extends, for example, to the mural's two dominant elements: the bull and the horse. Art historian Patricia Failing said, "The bull and the horse are important characters in Spanish culture. Picasso himself certainly used these characters to play many different roles over time. This has made the task of interpreting the specific meaning of the bull and the horse very tough. Their relationship is a kind of ballet that was conceived in a variety of ways throughout Picasso's career."

When pressed to explain the elements in Guernica, Picasso said,

> ...this bull is a bull and this horse is a horse... If you give a meaning to certain things in my paintings it may be very true, but it is not my idea to give this meaning. What ideas and conclusions you have got I obtained too, but instinctively, unconsciously. I make the painting for the painting. I paint the objects for what they are.[24]

In The Dream and Lie of Franco, a series of narrative sketches Picasso also created for the World's Fair, Franco is depicted as a monster that first devours his own horse and later does battle with an angry bull. Work on these illustrations began before the bombing of Guernica, and four additional panels were added, three of which relate directly to the Guernica mural.

According to scholar Beverly Ray, the following list of interpretations reflects the general consensus of historians: "The shape and posture of the bodies express protest"; "Picasso uses black, white, and grey paint to set a somber mood and express pain and chaos"; "flaming buildings and crumbling walls not only express the destruction of Guernica, but reflect the destructive power of civil war"; "the newspaper print used in the painting reflects how Picasso learned of the massacre"; "The light bulb in the painting represents the sun"; and "The broken sword near the bottom of the painting symbolizes the defeat of the people at the hand of their tormentors".[11]

Alejandro Escalona said, "The chaos unfolding seems to happen in closed quarters provoking an intense feeling of oppression. There is no way out of the nightmarish cityscape. The absence of color makes the violent scene developing right before your eyes even more horrifying. The blacks, whites, and grays startle you—especially because you are used to see war images broadcast live and in high-definition right to your living room."[25]

In drawing attention to a number of preliminary studies, the so-called primary project,[26] that show an atelier installation incorporating the central triangular shape which reappears in the final version of Guernica, Becht-Jördens and Wehmeier interpret the painting as a self-referential composition in the tradition of atelier paintings such as Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez. In his chef d'oeuvre, Picasso seems to be trying to define his role and his power as an artist in the face of political power and violence. But far from being a mere political painting, Guernica should be seen as Picasso's comment on what art can actually contribute towards the self-assertion that liberates every human being and protects the individual against overwhelming forces such as political crime, war, and death.[27]

## Exhibition[edit]

### 1937 Paris International Exhibition[edit]

A replica (built in Barcelona in 1992) of the pavilion of the Spanish Republic at the 1937 Paris International Exhibition.

Guernica was unveiled and initially exhibited in July 1937 at the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Exposition,[28] where Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia had huge pavilions. The Pavilion, which was financed by the Spanish Republican government at the time of civil war, was built to exhibit the Spanish government's struggle for existence contrary to the Exposition's technology theme. The Pavilion's entrance presented an enormous photographic mural of Republican soldiers accompanied by the slogan:

We are fighting for the essential unity of Spain.
We are fighting for the integrity of Spanish soil.
We are fighting for the independence of our country and for the right of the Spanish people to determine their own destiny.

The display of Guernica was accompanied by a poem by Paul Éluard, and the pavilion displayed The Reaper by Joan Miró and Mercury Fountain by Alexander Calder, both of whom were sympathetic to the Republican cause.

At Guernica's Paris Exhibition unveiling it garnered little attention. The public's reaction to the painting was mixed.[29] Max Aub, one of the officials in charge of the Spanish pavilion, was compelled to defend the work against a group of Spanish officials who objected to the mural's modernist style and sought to replace it with a more traditional painting that was also commissioned for the exhibition, Madrid 1937 (Black Aeroplanes) by Horacio Ferrer de Morgado.[1] Some Marxist groups criticized Picasso's painting as lacking in political commitment, and faulted it for not offering a vision of a better future.[30] In contrast, Morgado's painting was a great success with Spanish Communists and with the public.[1] The art critic Clement Greenberg was also critical of Guernica,[31] and in a later essay he termed the painting "jerky" and "too compressed for its size", and compared it unfavorably to the "magnificently lyrical" The Charnel House (1944–1948), a later antiwar painting by Picasso.[32]

Among the painting's admirers were art critic Jean Cassou and poet José Bergamín, both of whom praised the painting as quintessentially Spanish.[33] Michel Leiris perceived in Guernica a foreshadowing: "On a black and white canvas that depicts ancient tragedy ... Picasso also writes our letter of doom: all that we love is going to be lost..."[34]

### European tour[edit]

Guernica, for which Picasso was paid 200,000 francs for his costs by the Spanish Republican government, was one of the few major paintings that Picasso did not sell directly to his exclusive contracted art dealer and friend, Paul Rosenberg.[35] However, after its exhibition Rosenberg organised a four-man extravaganza Scandinavian tour of 118 works by Picasso, Matisse, Braque, and Henri Laurens. The tour's main attraction was Guernica.

From January to April 1938 the tour visited Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Göteborg. Starting in late September Guernica was exhibited in London's Whitechapel Art Gallery. This stop was organized by Sir Roland Penrose with Labour Party leader Clement Attlee, and the painting arrived in London on 30 September, the same day the Munich Agreement was signed by the leaders of the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany. It then travelled to Leeds, Liverpool, and, in early 1939, Manchester. There, Manchester Foodship For Spain, a group of artists and activists engaged in sending aid to the people of Spain, exhibited the painting in the HE Nunn & Co Ford automobile showroom for two weeks.[36] Guernica then returned briefly to France.

### American tour[edit]

After Francisco Franco's victory in Spain, Guernica was sent to the United States to raise funds and support for Spanish refugees. It was first shown at the Valentine Gallery in New York City in May 1939. The San Francisco Museum of Art (later renamed the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) gave the work its first museum appearance in the United States from 27 August to 19 September 1939. New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) then mounted an exhibition from 15 November until 7 January 1940, entitled: Picasso: 40 Years of His Art. The exhibition, which was organized by MoMA's director Alfred H. Barr in collaboration with the Art Institute of Chicago, contained 344 works, including Guernica and its studies.[37]

At Picasso's request the safekeeping of Guernica was then entrusted to the Museum of Modern Art, and it was his expressed desire that the painting should not be delivered to Spain until liberty and democracy had been established in the country.[7] Between 1939 and 1952, Guernica traveled extensively in the United States. Between 1941 and 1942, it was exhibited at Harvard University's Fogg Museum twice.[38][39]

Between 1953 and 1956 it was shown in Brazil, then at the first Picasso retrospective in Milan, Italy, and then in numerous other major European cities before returning to MoMA for a retrospective celebrating Picasso's 75th birthday. It then went to Chicago and Philadelphia. By this time, concern for the state of the painting resulted in a decision to keep it in one place: a room on MoMA's third floor, where it was accompanied by several of Picasso's preliminary studies and some of Dora Maar's photographs of the work in progress. The studies and photos were often loaned for other exhibitions, but until 1981, Guernica itself remained at MoMA.[7]

During the Vietnam War, the room containing the painting became the site of occasional anti-war vigils. These were usually peaceful and uneventful, but on 28 February 1974, Tony Shafrazi—ostensibly protesting Second Lieutenant William Calley's petition for habeas corpus following his indictment and sentencing for the murder of 109 Vietnamese civilians during the My Lai massacre—defaced the painting with red spray paint, painting the words "KILL LIES ALL". The paint was removed with relative ease from the varnished surface.[40]

## Establishment in Spain[edit]

As early as 1968, Franco had expressed an interest in having Guernica come to Spain.[7] However, Picasso refused to allow this until the Spanish people again enjoyed a republic. He later added other conditions, such as the restoration of "public liberties and democratic institutions". Picasso died in 1973. Franco, ten years Picasso's junior, died two years later, in 1975. After Franco's death, Spain was transformed into a democratic constitutional monarchy, ratified by a new constitution in 1978. However, MoMA was reluctant to give up one of its greatest treasures and argued that a monarchy did not represent the republic that had been stipulated in Picasso's will as a condition for the painting's delivery. Under great pressure from a number of observers, MoMA finally ceded the painting to Spain in 1981. The Spanish historian Javier Tusell was one of the negotiators.

Upon its arrival in Spain in September 1981,[41] it was first displayed behind bomb-and bullet-proof glass screens[42] at the Casón del Buen Retiro in Madrid in time to celebrate the centenary of Picasso's birth, 25 October.[41] The exhibition was visited by almost a million people in the first year.[43] Since that time there has never been any attempted vandalism or other security threat to the painting.

A tiled wall in Gernika claims "Guernica" Gernikara, "The Guernica (painting) to Gernika."

In 1992, the painting was moved from the Museo del Prado to a purpose-built gallery at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, both in Madrid, along with about two dozen preparatory works.[44] This action was controversial in Spain, since Picasso's will stated that the painting should be displayed at the Prado. However, the move was part of a transfer of all of the Prado's collections of art after the early 19th century to other nearby buildings in the city for reasons of space; the Reina Sofía, which houses the capital's national collection of 20th-century art, was the natural place to move it to. At the Reina Sofía, the painting has roughly the same protection as any other work.[45]

Basque nationalists have advocated that the picture should be brought to the Basque Country,[46] especially after the building of the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum. Officials at the Reina Sofía claim[47] that the canvas is now thought to be too fragile to move. Even the staff of the Guggenheim do not see a permanent transfer of the painting as possible, although the Basque government continues to support the possibility of a temporary exhibition in Bilbao.[45]

## Tapestry at the United Nations[edit]

The tapestry, at the Whitechapel Gallery in 2009

A full-size tapestry copy of Picasso's Guernica, by Jacqueline de la Baume Dürrbach,[48] hangs at the Headquarters of the United Nations in New York City at the entrance to the Security Council room.[49] It is less monochromatic than the original and uses several shades of brown.

The Guernica tapestry was first displayed from 1985 to 2009, and returned in 2015. Originally commissioned in 1955 by Nelson Rockefeller, since Picasso refused to sell him the original,[50] the tapestry was placed on loan to the United Nations by the Rockefeller estate in 1985.[51]

On 5 February 2003 a large blue curtain was placed to cover over the work at the UN, so that it would not be visible in the background during press conferences by Colin Powell and John Negroponte as they were arguing in favor of war on Iraq.[52] On the following day, UN officials claimed that the curtain was placed there at the request of television news crews, who had complained that the wild lines and screaming figures made for a bad backdrop, and that a horse's hindquarters appeared just above the faces of any speakers. Some diplomats, however, in talks with journalists claimed that the Bush administration pressured UN officials to cover the tapestry, rather than have it in the background while Powell or other US diplomats argued for war on Iraq.[5] In a critique of the covering, columnist Alejandro Escalona hypothesized that Guernica's "unappealing ménage of mutilated bodies and distorted faces proved to be too strong for articulating to the world why the US was going to war in Iraq", while referring to the work as "an inconvenient masterpiece".[25]

On 17 March 2009, Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary-General Marie Okabe announced that the Guernica tapestry had been moved to a gallery in London in advance of extensive renovations at UN Headquarters. The Guernica tapestry was the showcase piece for the grand reopening of the Whitechapel Gallery. It was located in the 'Guernica room' which was originally part of the old Whitechapel Library.[53] In 2012 the tapestry was on loan from the Rockefeller family to the San Antonio Museum of Art in San Antonio, Texas.[54] It was returned to the UN by March 2015.[55] Nelson A. Rockefeller Jr., the owner of the tapestry, took it back in February 2021.[56] In February 2022, it was returned to the wall outside the UN Security Council.[49]

## Significance and legacy[edit]

> "Guernica is to painting what Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is to music: a cultural icon that speaks to mankind not only against war but also of hope and peace. It is a reference when speaking about genocide from El Salvador to Bosnia."

Alejandro Escalona, on the 75th anniversary of the painting's creation[25]

During the 1970s, Guernica was a symbol for Spaniards of both the end of the Franco regime following Franco's death, and of Basque nationalism. The Basque left has repeatedly used imagery from the picture. An example is the organization Etxerat, which uses a reversed image of the lamp as its symbol.[57] Guernica has since become a universal and powerful symbol warning humanity against the suffering and devastation of war.[25] There are no obvious references to the specific attack, making its message universal and timeless.[25]

Art historian and curator W. J. H. B. Sandberg argued in Daedalus in 1960 that Picasso pioneered a “new language” combining expressionistic and cubist techniques in Guernica. Sandberg wrote that Guernica conveyed an “expressionistic message” in its focus on the inhumanity of the air raid, while using "the language of cubism". For Sandberg, the work's defining cubist features included its use of diagonals, which rendered the painting's setting "ambiguous, unreal, inside and outside at the same time".[19] In 2016, the British art critic Jonathan Jones called the painting a "Cubist apocalypse" and stated that Picasso "was trying to show the truth so viscerally and permanently that it could outstare the daily lies of the age of dictators".[58][59]

Works inspired by Guernica include Faith Ringgold's 1967 painting The American People Series #20: Die; Goshka Macuga's The Nature of the Beast (2009–2010), which used the Whitechapel-hosted United Nations Guernica tapestry; The Keiskamma Guernicas (2010–2017); and Erica Luckert's theatrical production of Guernica (2011–2012).[60][61] Art and design historian Dr Nicola Ashmore curated an exhibition, Guernica Remakings, at the University of Brighton galleries from 29 July 2017 to 23 August 2017.[60]

## See also[edit]

* Guernica, 1950 film directed by Alain Resnais and Robert Hessens
* The 2018 television series Genius features Picasso's life and work, including Guernica
* The Weeping Woman, 1937 Picasso painting
* Guernica, 1937 sculpture by René Iché
* The Charnel House, 1944-45 Picasso painting
* Massacre in Korea, 1951 Picasso painting[62]
* Dove, 1949 Picasso lithograph
* 1980 BBC series 100 Great Paintings, 1980

## References and sources[edit]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Richardson (2016)
2. ^ Picasso, Pablo. Guernica. Museo Reina Sofía. (Retrieved 2017-09-07.)
3. ^ "Pablo Picasso". Biography.com.
4. ^ Forrest Brown. "10 most famous paintings in the world". CNN. Retrieved 13 April 2021.
5. ^ a b Cohen (2003).
6. ^ "Picasso and 'Guernica': Exploring the Anti-War Symbolism of This Famous Painting". My Modern Met. 31 December 2021. Retrieved 8 January 2022.
7. ^ a b c d Timeline, part of a series of web pages on Guernica in PBS's Treasures of the World series. Accessed 16 July 2006.
8. ^ Preston, Paul (2012) The Destruction of Guernica. HarperCollins At Google Books. Retrieved 18 July 2013.
9. ^ Barton (2004).
10. ^ a b c Arhheim, (1973) p. ???
11. ^ a b Ray (2006), 168–171.
12. ^ Quoted in Oppler (1988), p. 166.
13. ^ Beevor (2006), 231
14. ^ Beevor (2006), 233.
15. ^ Saul, Toby (8 May 2018). "The horrible inspiration behind one of Picasso's great works". nationalgeographic.com. Retrieved 21 May 2019.
16. ^ Overy, Richard (2013). The Bombing War: Europe, 1939-1945. Penguin UK. p. ix. ISBN 0141927828.
17. ^ a b Preston (2007). 12–19.
18. ^ Tom Lubbock (27 March 2013). "Review: Guernica by Gijs van Hensbergen | Books". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 April 2013.
19. ^ a b Sandberg, W.J.H.B (1960). "Picasso's "Guernica"". Daedalus. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
20. ^ John Ferren biography, guggenheim.org. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
21. ^ Fluegel (1980), p. 308.
22. ^ Tóibín (2006).
23. ^ https://spokenvision.com/the-7-hidden-symbols-in-picassos-guernica/ Seven hidden symbols in the painting
24. ^ ...questions of meaning, part of a series of web pages on Guernica in PBS's Treasures of the World series. Accessed 16 July 2006.
25. ^ a b c d e Escalona, Alejandro. 75 years of Picasso's Guernica: An Inconvenient Masterpiece, The Huffington Post, 23 May 2012.
26. ^ Werner Spies: Guernica und die Weltausstellung von 1937. In: Id.: Kontinent Picasso. Ausgewählte Aufsätze, Munich 1988, S. 63–99.
27. ^ See Becht-Jördens (2003)
28. ^ Martin (2002)
29. ^ Witham (2013), p. 175.
30. ^ Greeley, Robin A. (2006). Surrealism and the Spanish Civil War. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 241. ISBN 0300112955
31. ^ Witham (2013), p. 176
32. ^ Greenberg (1993), p. 236.
33. ^ Martin (2003), p. 128.
34. ^ Martin (2003), p. 129.
35. ^ Van Hensbergen, Gijs (2005) Guernica p. 83 Bloomsbury Publishing At Google Books. Retrieved 4 November 2013
36. ^ Youngs, Ian (15 February 2012). "BBC News – Picasso's Guernica in a car showroom". Bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 20 April 2013.
37. ^ Fluegel (1980), p. 350
38. ^ Cuno, James B., ed. (1996). Harvard's art museums: 100 years of collecting. Cambridge: Harvard University Museums. p. 38\. ISBN 0-8109-3427-2. OCLC 33948167.
39. ^ "Picasso's "Guernica" borrowed by Fogg Art Museum for Two Weeks". The Harvard Crimson. 1 October 1941. Retrieved 22 January 2021.`{{cite web}}`: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
40. ^ Hoberman 2004
41. ^ a b (in Spanish) "30 años del “Guernica” en España" Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED). Retrieved 18 July 2013.
42. ^ Van Hensbergen, Gijs (2005) Guernica p. 305. Bloomsbury Publishing At Google Books. Retrieved 18 July 2013.
43. ^ (in Spanish) "Un millón de personas ha visto el 'Guernica' en el Casón del Buen Retiro" El País. Retrieved 18 July 2013.
44. ^ The Casón del Buen Retiro: History Museo del Prado. Retrieved 18 July 2013.
45. ^ a b Author interview on Russell Martin's Picasso's War site. Accessed 16 July 2006.
46. ^ Ibarretxe reclama 'para siempre' el 'Guernica', El Mundo, 29 June 2007.
47. ^ El Patronato del Reina Sofía rechaza la cesión temporal del 'Guernica' al Gobierno vasco, El Mundo, 22 June 2006.
48. ^ "In praise of ... Guernica". The Guardian. 26 March 2009. Retrieved 12 July 2017.
49. ^ a b Falk, Pamela (5 February 2022). "Picasso's anti-war tapestry Guernica returns to the U.N."
50. ^ Conrad, Peter. "A scream we can't ignore", The Guardian, 10 March 2004.
51. ^ Campbell (2009), 29.
52. ^ Kennedy (2009).
53. ^ Hensbergen (2009).
54. ^ Art, San Antonio Museum of. "San Antonio Museum of Art - Home". Samuseum.org. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
55. ^ Remnick, David (2015). "Today's Woman", The New Yorker, 23 March 2015.
56. ^ "Iconic tapestry of Picasso's 'Guernica' is gone from the U.N." NBC News. AP. 26 February 2021. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
57. ^ "Etxerat". Etxerat. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
58. ^ As Aleppo burns in this age of lies, Picasso's Guernica still screams the truth about war
59. ^ Eighty years later, the Nazi war crime in Guernica still matters - The grim anniversary of the bombing is a reminder of humanity's continuing capacity for evil
60. ^ a b "136959 Guernica Remakings 2019". Southbank Centre. Archived from the original on 14 August 2020. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
61. ^ Smee, Sebastian (12 February 2020). "American carnage". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 22 March 2022. Retrieved 24 April 2022.
62. ^ https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190620-picasso-the-ultimate-painter-of-war BBC: Picasso, the ultimate painter of war?

Sources

* Arnheim, Rudolf. (1973). The Genesis of a Painting: Picasso's Guernica. London: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-25007-9
* Barton, Simon. (2004). A History of Spain. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
* Becht-Jördens, Gereon: Picassos Guernica als kunsttheoretisches Programm. In: Becht-Jördens, Gereon and Wehmeier, (In German) Peter M.: Picasso und die christliche Ikonographie. Mutterbeziehung und künstlerische Position. Dietrich Reimer, Berlin 2003, S. 209–237 ISBN 3-496-01272-2
* Becraft, Melvin E. Picasso's Guernica – Images within Images 3rd Edition PDF download
* Beevor, Antony. (2006) The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-0-297-84832-5
* Blunt, Anthony. (1969) Picasso's Guernica. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-500135-4
* Bonazzoli, Francesca, and Michele Robecchi. (2014) "Pablo Picasso: Guernica", in Mona Lisa to Marge: How the World's Greatest Artworks Entered Popular Culture. New York: Prestel. ISBN 978-379134877-3
* Campbell, Peter (2009). "At the New Whitechapel" London Review of Books 31(8), 30 April 2009.
* Cohen, David. (2003) Hidden Treasures: What's So Controversial About Picasso's Guernica?, Slate, 6 February 2003. Accessed 16 July 2006.
* Fluegel, Jane. (1980) "Chronology" in Rubin (1980) Pablo Picasso: A Retrospective.
* Francesconi, Elizabeth. (2006) "A Look Inside Picasso's War Images", discourse: An Online Journal by the students of Southern Methodist University, Spring 2006.
* Granell, Eugenio Fernándes, Picasso's Guernica: the end of a Spanish era (Ann Arbor, Mich. : UMI Research Press, 1981) ISBN 0-8357-1206-0, ISBN 978-0-8357-1206-4
* Greenberg, Clement (1993). The Collected Essays and Criticism; Volume 4: Modernism with a Vengeance, 1957–1969. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226306240
* Harris, Mark and Becraft, Melvin E. Picasso's Secret Guernica
* Hensbergen, Gijs van. (2004) Guernica: The Biography of a Twentieth-Century Icon. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-58234-124-8
* Hensbergen, Gijs van. (2009) "Piecing together Guernica". BBC News Magazine: 7 April 2009. Accessed: 14 August 2009.
* Hoberman, J. "Pop and Circumstance". The Nation, 13 December 2004, 22–26.
* Kennedy, Maev. (2009) "Picasso tapestry of Guernica heads to UK", London: The Guardian, 26 January 2009. Accessed: 14 August 2009.
* Mallen, Enrique On-Line Picasso Project – OPP.37:001.[dead link]
* Martin, Russell. (2003). Picasso's War. London: Simon & Schuster UK. ISBN 978-0-7434-7863-2
* Martin, Russell. (2002) Picasso's War: The Destruction of Guernica and the Masterpiece that Changed the World (2002). On-line excerpts link.
* Oppler, Ellen C. (ed). (1988). Picasso's Guernica (Norton Critical Studies in art History). New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-95456-0
* PBS On-line supplement to "Treasures of the World" series, "Guernica: Testimony to War" with Guernica timeline.
* Pisik, Betsy. (2003) "The Picasso Cover-Up". The Washington Times, 3 February 2003. Re-published at CommonDreams.org. Accessed: 14 August 2009
* Preston, Paul. (2007) "George Steer and Guernica". History Today 57 (2007): 12–19.
* Ray, Beverly. (2006) "Analyzing Political Art to Get at Historical Fact: Guernica and the Spanish Civil War". The Social Studies 97 (2006): 168–171.
* Richardson, John (2016) "A Different Guernica". The New York Review of Books, 12 May 2016, 63 (8): 4–6.
* Rubin, William, ed. (1980) Pablo Picasso: A Retrospective. New York: The Museum of Modern Art. ISBN 0-87070-519-9
* Thomas, Gordon & Morgan-Witts, Max. (1975). The Day Guernica Died. London: Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0-340-19043-4
* Tóibín, Colm. (2006) "The art of war", London: The Guardian, 29 April 2006. Accessed: 14 August 2009.
* Witham, Larry (2013). Picasso and the chess player: Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and the battle for the soul of modern art. Hanover; London : University Press of New England. ISBN 9781611682533

## External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Guernica.

* v
* t
* e

Spanish Civil War

* Background

July 1936 uprising

* Melilla
* Seville
* 1st Barcelona
* Cuartel de la Montaña
* Gijón
* Oviedo
* Cuartel de Loyola

1936

* German intervention
* Guadarrama
* Andalusia
* Alcázar
* Extremadura
* Convoy de la Victoria
* Almendralejo
* Sigüenza
* 1st Mérida
* Badajoz
* Majorca
* Sierra Guadalupe
* Córdoba
* Gipuzkoa
* Irún
* Monte Pelado
* Talavera
* Santuario de Nuestra Señora de la Cabeza
* Guinea
* Cerro Muriano
* Cape Spartel
* Seseña
* Madrid
* Ciudad Universitaria
* 1st Corunna Road
* Villarreal
* Ursula
* Aceituna
* Lopera
* 2nd Corunna Road

1937

* 3rd Corunna Road
* Málaga
* Jarama
* Cape Machichaco
* Guadalajara
* Pozoblanco
* War in the North
* Cantabrian Sea
* Biscay
* Durango
* Guernica
* Bilbao
* Santander
* Asturias
* El Mazuco
* Jaén
* 2nd Barcelona
* Deutschland
* Almería
* Segovia
* Huesca
* Albarracín
* Brunete
* Zaragoza
* 1st Belchite
* Cape Cherchell
* Sabiñánigo
* 1st Lérida
* Teruel

1938

* Valladolid
* Alfambra
* Cape Palos
* Aragon
* 2nd Belchite
* 3rd Barcelona
* Caspe
* 2nd Lérida
* 1st Gandesa
* Segre
* Levante
* Balaguer
* Los Blázquez
* Alicante
* Granollers
* Bielsa
* 2nd Mérida
* Ebro
* 2nd Gandesa
* Cantabria
* Cabra
* Sant Vicenç de Calders

1939

* Catalonia
* Valsequillo
* Xàtiva
* La Garriga
* Minorca
* Cartagena
* Final offensive

* Rethinking Guernica – Museo Reina Sofía site with more than 2000 documents referenced and a gigapixel image of the painting.
* Art Opposes Injustice! – Picasso's Guernica: For Life by Dorothy Koppelman
* 3-D Guernica, YouTube
* Guardian: Picasso's Guernica Battle Lives On 26 April 2007
* Guernica – Zoomable version.
* Picasso's "Secret" Guernica
* Socialist Worker: Guernica: Shock and Awe in Paint Archived 24 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine 24 April 2007
* The New Yorker: Spanish Lessons, Picasso in Madrid by Peter Schjeldahl, 19 June 2006
* X-ray Shows Picasso's Guernica Painting has Suffered a lot but is not in Danger Associated Press, 23 July 2008
* Guernica Remakings Website collating and analysing the activity of remaking versions the iconic painting.

* v
* t
* e

Pablo Picasso

Periods|

* Blue (1901–1904)
* Rose (1904–1906)
* African (1907–1909)
* Cubism (1910–1919)

Lists of works|

* 1889–1900
* 1901–1910
* 1911–1920
* 1921–1930
* 1931–1940
* 1941–1950
* 1951–1960
* 1961–1970
* 1971–1973

Paintings|

* Le petit picador jaune (1889)
* Science and Charity (1897)
* Child with a Dove (1901)
* La Gommeuse (1901)
* Yo, Picasso (1901)
* The Blue Room (1901)
* Femme aux Bras Croisés (1901-02)
* The Old Guitarist (1903)
* La Vie (1903)
* Portrait of Angel Fernández de Soto (1903)
* Portrait of Suzanne Bloch (1904)
* The Actor (1904-1905)
* Woman Ironing (1904)
* Girl in a Chemise (c.1905)
* Acrobat and Young Harlequin (1905)
* Family of Saltimbanques (1905)
* Garçon à la pipe (1905)
* Girl on a Ball (1905)
* Les Noces de Pierrette (1905)
* Au Lapin Agile (1905)
* Young Girl with a Flower Basket (1905)
* Famille d'acrobates avec singe (1905)
* Boy Leading a Horse (1905–06)
* Portrait of Gertrude Stein (1905–06)
* Head of a Young Woman (1906)
* Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907)
* Brick Factory at Tortosa (1909)
* Portrait of Ambroise Vollard (1910)
* Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (1910)
* The Accordionist (1911)
* Le pigeon aux petits pois (1911)
* La Coiffeuse (1911)
* Violon et raisins (1912)
* Bottle, Glass, Fork (1912)
* Ma Jolie (1912)
* Ma Jolie (1914)
* Three Musicians (1921)
* Reading the Letter (c. 1921)
* The Pipes of Pan (1923)
* The Three Dancers (1925)
* Woman in a Red Armchair (1929)
* Le Repos (1932)
* Girl before a Mirror (1932)
* La Lecture (1932)
* Le Rêve (1932)
* Nude, Green Leaves and Bust (1932)
* Nude in a Black Armchair (1932)
* Two Girls Reading (1934)
* Jeune Fille Endormie (1935)
* Guernica (1937)
* Portrait of Dora Maar (1937)
* Woman in Hat and Fur Collar (1937)
* The Weeping Woman (1937)
* Girl with a Red Beret and Pompom (1937)
* Femme au béret et à la robe quadrillée (Marie-Thérèse Walter) (1937)
* Maya with Doll (1938)
* Woman's Head (1939)
* Dora Maar au Chat (1941)
* The Charnel House (1944–1945)
* Nature morte au poron (1948)
* Massacre in Korea (1951)
* Les Femmes d'Alger series (1955)
* Las Meninas (1957)
* The Fall of Icarus (1958)
* Jacqueline (1961)
* Femme au Chien (1962)

Sculptures|

* Bust of a Woman (Marie-Thérèse) (1931)
* Tete de femme (Dora Maar) (1941)
* Bull's Head (1942)
* Baboon and Young (1951)
* Chicago Picasso (1967)
* Sylvette (1970)

Etchings|

* Vollard Suite (1930–1937)
* Minotaur Kneeling over Sleeping Girl (1933)
* Minotauromachy (1935)
* The Dream and Lie of Franco (1937)
* 347 Series (1968)

Drawings|

* Don Quixote (1955)
* Toros y toreros (1961)

Lithographs|

* Dove (1949)

Plays|

* Desire Caught by the Tail (c. 1941)
* The Four Little Girls (c. 1947–48)

Poetry|

* Picasso's poetry

Ballet designs|

* Picasso and the Ballets Russes
* Parade
* The Three-Cornered Hat
* Pulcinella
* Le Train Bleu
* Mercure

Museums|

* Musée Picasso (Paris)
* Musée Picasso (Antibes)
* Museu Picasso (Barcelona)
* Museo Picasso Málaga (Malaga)
* Museo Casa Natal (Malaga)

Partners|

* Fernande Olivier
* Marie-Thérèse Walter
* Dora Maar
* Françoise Gilot
* Geneviève Laporte

Family|

* Olga Khokhlova (first wife)
* Jacqueline Roque (second wife)
* Maya Widmaier-Picasso (daughter)
* Claude Picasso (son)
* Paloma Picasso (daughter)
* Diana Widmaier Picasso (granddaughter)
* Marina Picasso (granddaughter)
* Bernard Ruiz-Picasso (grandson)
* José Ruiz y Blasco (father)

Films and
television about|

* Visit to Picasso (1949)
* Guernica (1950)
* The Mystery of Picasso (1956)
* The Adventures of Picasso (1978)
* Surviving Picasso (1996)
* Picasso: Magic, Sex & Death (2001)
* Modigliani (2004)
* Genius (2018 TV series)

Related|

* Carles Casagemas
* Carl Nesjar
* Lydia Corbett
* Lump (dog)
* Bateau-Lavoir
* Château of Vauvenargues
* Villa La Californie
* Fundación Picasso
* Picasso. In the heart of darkness (1939-1945) (2019-2020 exhibition)
* Picasso & Lump (2006 book)
* Picasso referendum of Basel
* Regjeringskvartalet murals
* Theft of The Weeping Woman from the National Gallery of Victoria
* Portrait of Pablo Picasso (1915 painting)
* "If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso" (1924 poem)
* Woman, Bird, Star (Homage to Pablo Picasso) (1973 painting)
* "Pablo Picasso" (1976 song)
* Picasso at the Lapin Agile (1993 play)

* v
* t
* e

Guernica (1937 painting)

Artist|

* Pablo Picasso

Inspiration|

* Bombing of Guernica
* Juan Larrea

Location|

* Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid

Past locations|

* 1937 Paris International Exposition
* Casón del Buen Retiro

In popular culture|

* Guernica (1950 film)
* Genius (2018 TV series)

Related|

* Dora Maar
* John Ferren

* v
* t
* e

1937 Paris International Exposition of Arts and Techniques Applied to Modern Life

Site
Champ de Mars, Trocadéro, esplanade des Invalides and banks of the Seine. Paris

Pavilions|

* Grand Palais
* Palais de Chaillot
* Palace of the Museums of Modern Art
* Pavilion of Spain
* Guernica
* Mercury fountain
* The Reaper
* Pavilion of the USSR
* Worker and Kolkhoz Woman

Attractions|

* Eiffel Tower
* Naissance d'une cité
* Passerelle Debilly
* Pont Alexandre III

Urban development|

* Métro
* Line 8
* Line 10
* Line 14

Others|

* Phare du Monde

Authority control

General|

* VIAF
* 1
* WorldCat (via VIAF)

National libraries|

* France (data)
* Germany
* Israel
* United States

Art research institutes|

* RKD ID (Netherlands)

Other|

* SUDOC (France)
* 1

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*[e]: Edit this template