It’s hard to say whether the bombing of Guernica would have gained such international attention without Picasso’s painting drawing attention to it. MoMA continued to display the massive painting in various US cities and around the world for almost two decades-helping to turn Picasso and Cubism into household names. When World War II began in 1939, Guernica left Europe and was sent to New York’s Museum of Modern Art for safekeeping. After being displayed at the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris, Guernica went on a two-year “world tour” to encourage anti-fascist sentiment and raise funds for the troops of the Spanish Republic.
It was a shocking painting, both for its modern, Cubist style and for its haunting subject matter. The genius of Guernica is that it successfully combines dreamlike (some might say nightmarish) elements of Surrealism with the multiple-perspectives of Cubism.
As his fame grew, Picasso explored a variety of artistic styles, drawing often from Cubism (which he created with Georges Braque) and the Surrealist movement epitomized by Salvador Dali and his famous “melting clocks” painting. for those who saw it in 1937, with international tensions running high and World War II looming on the horizon, Guernica struck home like a bolt of lightning.Īt the time, Picasso was in his mid-50’s and living in France rather than Spain, the land of his birth. Its monochromatic color palette, intense contrast, and large, violent images are visceral, compelling, and unforgettable even today. Created as an anti-war protest piece in response to the 1937 aerial bombing of a small town in northern Spain, Guernica quickly became one of Pablo Picasso’s most-recognized Cubist paintings-and for very good reason.
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