Public Display of and Presentation on Picasso’s Guernica

In January 1937 the Spanish Republican government commissioned Pablo Picasso to create a mural on the theme of “technology” for the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris. Picasso was living in Paris at the time and hadn’t been to Spain for three years. He worked on the mural for several months, although uninspired. On the first of May Picasso read George Steer’s moving eyewitness account of the bombing of Guernica on April 26 by German bombers and immediately changed course and started sketches for what would become the world-famous painting – and probably Picasso’s most famous work – known as Guernica. Upon completion, Guernica was displayed at the World’s Fair in Paris, where it was initially negatively received. After the World’s Fair, Guernica was displayed on a tour that lasted 19 years throughout Europe and North America in order to raise consciousness about the threat of fascism and raise funds for Spanish refugees. The tour helped bring the Spanish Civil War to the world’s attention and made Guernica the world’s most famous anti-war painting.