Picasso, War and Peace
The exhibition presents several instances of Picasso's preoccupation with and rendering of the theme of war and its brutality, particularly the ravages of the Spanish Civil War, from the late thirties to the early sixties.
Between the late thirties and the early sixties, Picasso often depicted the brutality of war, especially the Spanish Civil War, as we see in this exhibition. The commission of a work for the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Exposition in 1937 made by the government of the Second Spanish Republic led to the Guernica and the works surrounding it, which have since become an emblem of human suffering. The show also presents a series of pieces that reveal Picasso's reflections on the power of art in the face of horror. His growing commitment to the preservation of freedom and peace culminated in his participation in the World Congress of Intellectuals for Peace held in Wroclaw (Poland) in 1948, in Paris in 1949, and in London in 1950, and was expressed in his drawings and lithographs of doves that are now the symbol of peace in the world.
Chronicle of the exhibition
Picasso: War & Peace
Pablo Picasso created the two most standout symbols of war and peace: Guernica and the dove. Nonetheless, it is significant that he avoids the direct retelling of the conflict, albeit there are airs of war in Picasso’s work, in the same way that his paintings have a response to the peace efforts dominating Europe after the Second World War. In the artist’s own words: ‘painting was not invented to decorate houses. It is a weapon of war to defend oneself from the enemy.’
