Picasso painted Guernica at his home in Paris in response to the bombing of Guernica, a Basque Country town in northern Spain, by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy at the request of the Spanish Nationalists. He began sketching a series of preliminary drawings for Guernica on poet Juan Larrea’s suggestion. Maestro worked on the painting for 35 days and finished it on 4 June 1937.

Guernica, Ruins

Picasso lived in Paris during the German occupation during World War II. A German officer allegedly asked him, upon seeing a photo of Guernica in Picasso’s apartment, “Did you do that?” Picasso responded, “No, you did.”

Picasso, “Guernica”, Oil on canvas

Content Copyrights

“Guernica ruins” photo – Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-H25224 / Unknown author / CC-BY-SA 3.0
Photo of the “Guernica” painitng – PICASSO, la exposición del Reina-Prado. Guernica is in the collection of Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid. Source page: http://www.picassotradicionyvanguardia.com/08R.php (archive.org)
Text – Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(Picasso)