GUERNICA

Following the 80th anniversary of the work’s creation, the Musée national Picasso-Paris in partnership with the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía is dedicating an exhibition to the story of Guernica an exceptional painting by Pablo Picasso and probably one of the most famous artworks in the world. The masterpiece can be seen in its permanent location in Madrid since 1992.

Painted in 1937, this monumental artwork is both a synthesis of the plastic research conducted by Picasso for 40 years and a popular icon. Exhibited, replicated all over the world, it has been at the same time an anti-franco, an anti-fascist and a pacific symbol. It is also an abundantly quoted, commented and taken up artwork, theorized by art historians and artists.

Thanks to the exceptional loan of Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía of numerous sketches and post-scriptums of Guernica, the genesis of the artwork is presented from the bullfights to Minotauromachies in the 1930’s until the bursting of the Spanish civil war in Picasso’s life and art. The display reminds us of the artwork’s context, emphasizing on the choc caused by the bombing of Gernika, the Basque village, on April 26th 1937. An important partnership with the National Archives of France offers the possibility of presenting a group of posters that comes from the fund of the International Brigades.

Curator : Emilie Bouvard, curator at Musée national Picasso-Paris Associated curator : Géraldine Mercier, art historian