Picasso’s inspiration for Guernica came when, at Franco’s request, German aircraft bombed civilians in the Basque town of Gernika. It is a huge painting in black, white and grey, a powerful statement of the horrors of war and one of the world’s most recognisable works of art.
Our main focus is the picture itself: the way in which it evolved; the symbolism of its individual components; and its emergence as an anti-war icon.
We shall follow its itinerant life from Paris in 1937 to its arrival at the Reina Sofia museum of contemporary art in Madrid in 1992.
Along the way, we shall get to know the artist and meet his women.
