Commissioned by the Spanish Republican government for the Spanish Pavilion, Picasso's enormous canvas depicted the suffering caused by the German and Italian bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. Initially met with mixed reviews, the painting later became one of the twentieth century's most powerful anti-war symbols, touring the world for decades before settling in Madrid.
Picasso worked at furious speed once he learned of the April 26 bombing of Guernica, a market town with no significant military value, destroyed by Nazi Condor Legion and Italian planes at the request of Francisco Franco's Nationalist forces. He produced dozens of preparatory sketches in a matter of weeks, ultimately painting the eleven-foot-tall, twenty-five-foot-wide mural directly onto canvas in his Paris studio, photographed at each stage by his partner Dora Maar.
The finished work shows no bombs or planes, only writhing human and animal figures, a screaming horse, a dismembered soldier's hand still gripping a broken sword, rendered entirely in grays, blacks, and whites reminiscent of newspaper photographs and newsreel footage. Contemporary critics at the 1937 Exposition were divided; some found it too abstract for propaganda, and it was reportedly one of the pavilion's less visited attractions at the time.
Guernica's reputation grew enormously over subsequent decades, especially after Picasso refused to allow it to hang in Spain while Franco lived. It finally arrived in Madrid in 1981, six years after the dictator's death, where it remains at the Museo Reina Sofia, still drawing gasps from visitors confronting its scale in person.
Key people: Pablo Picasso, Francisco Franco