For the pity and folly

Petar PLAMENOV

Guernica (1937) by Pablo Picasso, rare graphic version - etching

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Pablo Picasso’s 1937 anti-war painting Guernica will be exhibited at the Museum Gallery of Modern Art in Sofia in rare graphic version - etching of the famous monumental work.
Guernica is a painting in response to the bombing of Guernica, Basque Country, by German and Italian warplanes at the behest of the Spanish Nationalist forces, on 26 April 1937, during the Spanish Civil War. The Spanish Republican government commissioned Pablo Picasso to create a large mural for the Spanish display at the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (1937) Paris International Exposition in the 1937 World's Fair in Paris.

Guernica shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals, particularly innocent civilians. This work has gained a monumental status, becoming a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war, an anti-war symbol, and an embodiment of peace. 


 


In 1937 Picasso was 56, and Spain was embroiled in a civil war. Over the next 12 months, Picasso, inspired by the catastrophe of Guernica, made an extraordinary series of images of a woman in tears. There is not much to say about them, she speaks for herself. Picasso gave painting the power to evoke emotions beyond mere appearance. There are 18 images, arranged in chronological order, a mini exhibition.

Weeping Woman is a most expressive and fantastical image of a woman in distress. The geometry and shapes in the painting are imaginative and outrageous, with bright colors, and shapes of boats and flowers that would be humorous except for the profound suffering of the woman. The woman's eyes are like tipsy boats in a rough sea, spilling tears. Diamond shaped tears are also the nails of her hands, held up to her face in fright. With a single image Picasso expresses a complex array of human anguish; terror, despair, outrage, hysteria, and death. The sad and dark eyed woman is Picasso's lover Dora Maar, but the woman is also a symbol of a victim of war or a witness to the war in Spain and spreading throughout Europe in 1937. Picasso drew and painted hundreds of images of weeping women, rape, crying birds, and tortured animals as symbols of his own grief about the war.

Pablo Picasso
Portrait de Dora Maar
Date: 28-January/1937
Medium: Pencil & stump drawing
Dimension: 12.4 x 15.94 inches (31,5 x 40,5 cm)
Collection: Private collection

 

Pablo Picasso
Guernica [Étude]
Date: 24-May/1937
Medium: Pencil & gouache on paper
Dimension: 9.13 x 11.54 inches (23,2 x 29,3 cm)
Collection: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid

Pablo Picasso
Guernica [Étude]
Date: 24-May/1937
Medium: Pencil & gouache on paper
Dimension: 11.5 x 9.13 inches (29,2 x 23,2 cm)
Collection: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid

Pablo Picasso
Guernica [Étude]
Date: 28-May/1937
Medium: Pencil, crayon & gouache
Dimension: 9.13 x 11.54 inches (23,2 x 29,3 cm)
Collection: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid

Pablo Picasso
Guernica [Étude]
Date: 31-May/1937
Medium: Pencil, crayon & gouache
Dimension: 9.13 x 11.54 inches (23,2 x 29,3 cm)
Collection: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid

Pablo Picasso
Guernica [Étude]
Date: 3-June/1937
Medium: Pencil, crayon & gouache
Dimension: 9.13 x 11.54 inches (23,2 x 29,3 cm)
Collection: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid

Pablo Picasso
Guernica [Étude]
Date: 3-June/1937
Medium: Pencil, crayon & gouache
Dimension: 9.13 x 11.54 inches (23,2 x 29,3 cm)
Collection: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid

Pablo Picasso
La femme qui pleure
Date: 3-June/1937
Medium: Pencil, color crayon & gray gouache on white paper
Dimension: 9.13 x 11.54 inches (23,2 x 29,3 cm)
Collection: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid

Pablo Picasso
La femme qui pleure
Date: 8-June/1937
Medium: Pencil, color crayon & gray gouache on white paper
Dimension: 11.46 x 9.13 inches (29,1 x 23,2 cm)
Collection: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid

Pablo Picasso
Guernica [Étude]
Date: 13-June/1937
Medium: Pencil & crayon
Dimension: 11.42 x 9.06 inches (29 x 23 cm)
Collection: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid

Pablo Picasso
La femme qui pleure avec mouchoir I
Date: 22-June/1937
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimension: 21.65 x 18.23 inches (55 x 46,3 cm)
Collection: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid

Pablo Picasso
La femme qui pleure
Date: 22-June/1937
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimension: 21.85 x 17.91 inches (55,5 x 45,5 cm)
Collection: Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel

Pablo Picasso
La femme qui pleure I
Date: 26-June/1937
Medium: Crayons & gouache on canvas
Dimension: 21.65 x 18.23 inches (55 x 46,3 cm)
Collection: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid

Pablo Picasso
La femme qui pleure au foulard
Date: 26-June/1937
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimension: 21.65 x 18.11 inches (55 x 46 cm)
Collection: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA

Pablo Picasso
La femme qui pleure I (VI)
Date: 1-July/1937
Medium: Etching, aquatint, drypoint, scraper on copper on paper
Dimension: 27.24 x 19.49 inches (69,2 x 49,5 cm)
Collection: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid

Pablo Picasso
Tête de femme
Date: Fall/1937
Medium: Pencil on matchbox
Dimension: S/U
Collection: Private collection

Pablo Picasso
La femme qui pleure avec mouchoir III
Date: 17-October/1937
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimension: 36.22 x 28.74 inches (92 x 73 cm)
Collection: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid

Pablo Picasso
La femme qui pleure [Femme en pleurs]
Date: 26-October/1937
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimension: 23.62 x 19.29 inches (60 x 49 cm)
Collection: The Tate Modern, London

All photographs Copyright © Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York