CMA Exhibition Feature : Guernica and World War II

Special Exhibitions

Picasso: The Artist's Studio


	Picasso: The Artist's Studio
		Who Was Picasso?



Palette, Candlestick, and Head of Minotaur, November 4, 1938 Oil on canvas The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto [Cat. no. 32] ©2001 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Guernica and World War II

By the late 1930s, Picasso had become one of world’s most famous and influential artists. Both the popular press and avant-garde journals reported frequently on his activities. As an expatriate Spaniard living in Paris, Picasso also became the focus of political attention during the Spanish Civil War. In 1937 the government of the Spanish Republic commissioned Picasso to create a painting for their pavilion at the Paris World’s Fair.

Responding to newspaper accounts of the aerial bombing of the Basque city of Guernica, Picasso produced one of the most important paintings of the 20th century. His monumental canvas Guernica goes beyond denouncing this specific fascist atrocity to convey a universal indictment against war, ignorance, and indifference to suffering. After the fair closed, supporters of the Republican government sent Guernica on a tour of European cities, ending in New York, and intended to raise awareness of the precarious condition of Spanish democracy.

After the German invasion of France in May 1940, Picasso left Paris for Royan on the Atlantic coast of France. In August he returned to Paris, but the Vichy government banned him from participating in public exhibitions. Picasso remained in Paris for the rest of the war, painting images that convey the horror, boredom, and daily discomforts of life in occupied France. Rumors that he actively participated in the Resistance are apparently false, but he did contribute money to humanitarian organizations that secretly funneled support to Spanish and Soviet leftists. Some historians consider the clandestine reading of Picasso’s play Desire Caught by the Tail in Paris in March 1944 as an act of "intellectual resistance."

After the liberation of Paris in August 1944, Picasso emerged as a celebrity with visiting allied troops. Feeling the need to take a political stance, he officially joined the Communist Party in October 1944. For several years thereafter he attended communist peace conferences and made public statements in support of the party. His most famous contribution to the party was offering the image of a "dove" as a symbol of peace. After speaking out against the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, Picasso distanced himself from the party, but never formerly renounced his membership.

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