Arts and Music Atlas

Works, Makers, Traditions
Works

Guernica

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Guernica is a large oil painting completed by Pablo Picasso in 1937 in response to the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica by German and Italian warplanes during the Spanish Civil War. Painted in a stark palette of black, white and grey and filled with fragmented, anguished figures, it was first shown at the Spanish Pavilion of the 1937 Paris International Exposition and remains one of the best known anti-war images in Western art. The work is under copyright and is described here rather than reproduced.

Facts
Year Created
1937 1
Medium
Oil on canvas 1
Location
Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid 1
Commissioned By
Spanish Republican government, for the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 Paris International Exposition 1
Cross-Tradition Connections

Created By

Pablo Picasso, Artists
Source Gardner's Art Through the AgesFred S. Kleiner (after Helen Gardner)

In Form

Painting, Art Forms

In Movement

Cubism, Movements
Source Gardner's Art Through the AgesFred S. Kleiner (after Helen Gardner)
Sources
1. Gardner's Art Through the Ages
Fred S. Kleiner (after Helen Gardner), Cengage Learningchapter on Cubism and its aftermath, section on Picasso, Guernica
Frequently Asked Questions

Why did Picasso paint Guernica?

As a response to the 1937 bombing of the town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.

Pablo Picasso painted Guernica in 1937 in response to the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica by German and Italian warplanes during the Spanish Civil War. The Spanish Republican government commissioned the large canvas for the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 Paris International Exposition.

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