Remembering Guernica

About 5 years ago, I was lucky enough to have the chance to visit Spain, and while I was there I viewed Pablo Picasso’s Guernica on display in the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid. It’s an immense and beautiful painting.

As one often does when they experience something that leaves an impact on them, I wanted to do a bit of reading about the painting and it’s history and I stumbled upon a great book called Picasso’s War: the Destruction of Guernica and the Masterpiece

 that Changed the World by Russell Martin. I found the book easy to read, informative and interesting.

The painting Guernica was in response to the German bombing of the Basque town with the same name on April 26, 1937. With the anniversary nearing, you may be interested in reading something about the history of the event and/or the painting that came as a response to the horror of the event. 

If the link to Picasso interest you, Publisher’s Weekly magazine suggests the memoir Picasso and Dora by James Lord as offering an insightful look at his work on the painting. 

Guernica the Crucible of World War II by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan Witts is an older but still very interesting history of the bombardment. 

For a novel based around the historical event, American author Dave Boling has a recent first novel simply called Guernica.

originally published 2009