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Guernica
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Guernica

From 27 February to 29 July 2018

Guernica

ExpoGuernica
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Picasso - Étude pour "Guernica" (Tête de cheval) - Musée national centre d’art Reina Sofia
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Pablo Picasso, « Étude pour "Guernica" (Tête de cheval) », 2 mai 1937, Huile sur toile, 64 x 90,5 cm, 65 x 92, Musée national centre d’art Reina Sofia

About the exhibition

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Affiche Guernica

Following the 80th anniversary of the work’s creation, the Musée national Picasso-Paris in partnership with the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía is dedicating an exhibition to the story of Guernica an exceptional painting by Pablo Picasso and probably one of the most famous artworks in the world. The masterpiece can be seen in its permanent location in Madrid since 1992.

Painted in 1937, this monumental artwork is both a synthesis of the plastic research conducted by Picasso for 40 years and a popular icon. Exhibited, replicated all over the world, it has been at the same time an anti-franco, an anti-fascist and a pacific symbol. It is also an abundantly quoted, commented and taken up artwork, theorized by art historians and artists.

Thanks to the exceptional loan of Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía of numerous sketches and post-scriptums of Guernica, the genesis of the artwork is presented from the bullfights to Minotauromachies in the 1930’s until the bursting of the Spanish civil war in Picasso’s life and art. The display reminds us of the artwork’s context, emphasizing on the choc caused by the bombing of Gernika, the Basque village, on April 26th 1937. An important partnership with the National Archives of France offers the possibility of presenting a group of posters that comes from the fund of the International Brigades.

The second part of the exhibition shows the story and the posterity of Guernica whose power nowadays also comes from its visual, political and literary contexts in which it has been exhibited: the Pavilion of the International Exhibition of Art and Techniques of 1937, the importance of men such as Christian Zervos and his review Cahiers d’art or Paul Eluard.

The exhibition also testifies to the role of a federating image for the Spanish anti-Franco artistic circles, that the masterpiece played and of its future as a pacific post-war icon and thus approaches the history of its restitution to Spain in 1981. Lastly, it questions the influence of Guernica on XXth century art to the present day. Large-scale rewritings by several contemporary artists, such as Robert Longo, Art & Language and Damien Deroubaix, will punctuate the course.

The exhibition is organized in partnership with museum Reina Sofia and les Abattoirs.

Selected artworks

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Dora Maar - Huile sur toile "Guernica" en cours d'exécution, état VII - APPH1370 - 17-630055
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Dora Maar, « Huile sur toile "Guernica" en cours d'exécution, état VII, atelier des Grands-Augustins, Paris, en mai-juin 1937 », 24 x 30 cm, APPH1370, Musée national Picasso-Paris
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Picasso - Portrait de Dora Maar - MP158 - 15-631360
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Pablo Picasso, « Portrait de Dora Maar », 1937, Huile sur toile, 92 x 65 cm, MP158, Musée national Picasso-Paris
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Picasso - Corrida : la mort du toréro - MP145 - 16-550387
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Pablo Picasso, « Corrida : la mort du toréro », 19 Septembre 1933, Huile sur bois, 31 x 40 cm, MP145, Musée national Picasso-Paris
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Picasso - Femme à la bougie, combat entre le taureau et le cheval - MP1136 - 16-594900
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Pablo Picasso, « Femme à la bougie, combat entre le taureau et le cheval », 24 Juillet 1934, Contre-collé, contreplaqué, dessin à la plume, dessin au crayon de couleur, encre de Chine, peinture sur toile, 31 x 40 cm, MP1136, Musée national Picasso-Paris
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Dora Maar - Pablo Picasso accroupi près de toile "Guernica" dans l'atelier des Grands-Augustins, Paris, en mai-juin 1937 - MP1998-282 - 18-542451
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Dora Maar, « Pablo Picasso accroupi près de toile "Guernica" dans l'atelier des Grands-Augustins, Paris, en mai-juin 1937 », 20 x 20 cm, MP1998-282, Musée national Picasso-Paris
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Mario Perroti - Huile sur toile "Guernica" - APPH13652 -17-611619
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Mario Perroti, « Huile sur toile "Guernica" », 1953, 24 x 18 cm, APPH13652, Musée national Picasso-Paris

The curators

Emilie Bouvard
Curator at Musée national Picasso-Paris

Géraldine Mercier
Historian of art

Pictures

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Salles de l'exposition Guernica
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Salles de l'exposition Guernica
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Salles de l'exposition Guernica
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Salles de l'exposition Guernica
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Salles de l'exposition Guernica
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Salles de l'exposition Guernica
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Salles de l'exposition Guernica
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Salles de l'exposition Guernica
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Salles de l'exposition Guernica
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Salles de l'exposition Guernica

Musée national Picasso-Paris's conferences 

Each exhibition at the Musée national Picasso-Paris gives rise to a series of monthly lectures, free and open to everyone in an intimate format. Led by curators, professionals or researchers from a variety of disciplines, they are an opportunity to extend or deepen the themes and reflections addressed in the exhibitions.

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Conférence de clôture Guernica

Dossier pédagogique "Guernica" - Format portrait

PDF - 4.81 MB

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Catalogue

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Catalogue "Guernica"
The exhibition catalogue
Guernica
42 euros
The catalogue of Guernica's exhibition presented at the Musée national Picasso-Paris, focuses on the history of one of Pablo Picasso's major masterpieces via the links that unite the painting and the Spanish artist throughout his life and the way the work instilled culture until becoming a popular icon. Created in 1937 in a vast format, Guernica summarizes the plastic researches Picasso led for more than 40 years. Thanks to the reproduction of more than 130 works of the artist, this book proposes a new interpretation of the masterpieces that punctuate the path of Guernica. Exhibited, reproduced everywhere in the world, this work was all at once an anti Francoist, anti-Fascist and pacifist symbol, which the artist kept the traces in his own archives. Thus, this publication presents hundreds of documents, from an unprecedented work of researches into the private archives of Pablo Picasso, that enlighten differently the question of the political commitment of the painter and that testifies of the material help given by Picasso to the anti-Francoist Spanish artists. If Guernica is still considered nowadays a work of a rare force, it is also thanks to the visual, political and literary contexts in which it was exhibited: the Pavillon de l'Exposition international des Arts et Techniques in 1937 and the importance of men that contributed to spread this work such as Michel
Leiris in the Cahier d'art or Paul Eluard whose some of his texts are here reproduced. Finally, the catalogue will present a dozen of works and testimonies of contemporary artists directly inspired by Guernica, testifying even more of the exceptional circulation of this Picasso's masterpiece into the memories.

UNDER THE DIRECTION OF
Émilie Bouvard, curator in charge of the paintings (1938-1973) at the Musée
national Picasso-Paris
Géraldine Mercier, art historian

TO BE NOTED
First reference catalogue in French language dedicated to Guernica masterpiece
Unpublished personal archives of the artist
Coedition with the Musée national Picasso-Paris
Part of the exhibition will be travelling to Les Abattoirs, museum of modern and contemporary art of Toulouse in spring 2019
In french
320 pages
Co-editing Musée national Picasso-Paris/Gallimard edition
Dossier de presse "Guernica"

Press kit "Guernica"

PDF - 2.72 MB

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