Guernica

On 26 April 1937, German and Italian warplanes bombed the market town of Guernica in the Basque Country during the Spanish Civil War, killing hundreds of civilians. Picasso, living in Paris, had already been commissioned by the Republican government to create a mural for the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 Paris International Exposition. When news of the bombing reached him, he abandoned his original theme and began work on Guernica.

Picasso completed the enormous canvas — nearly 8 metres wide — in just five weeks. Photographs taken by his companion Dora Maar documented the process in detail. After the Paris exposition, Guernica toured internationally to raise awareness of the Republican cause. Picasso refused to allow the painting to return to Spain as long as Franco remained in power, and it was kept at MoMA in New York for decades before finally being transferred to Madrid in 1981, six years after Franco's death.