1937 Paris International Exhibition and his
Mercury Fountain , with horizontal bars of red, yellow, and purple, marking the place of exhibition of Picasso's painting
Guernica in Paris during the World Expo in 1937 (
Agfacolor)
Guernica was unveiled and initially exhibited in July 1937 at the Spanish Pavilion at the
Paris International Exposition, where Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had huge pavilions. The Pavilion, which was financed by the Spanish Republican government at the time of civil war, was built to exhibit the Spanish government's struggle for existence contrary to the Exposition's technology theme. The Pavilion's entrance presented an enormous photographic mural of Republican soldiers accompanied by the slogan: : We are fighting for the essential unity of Spain. : We are fighting for the integrity of Spanish soil. : We are fighting for the independence of our country and for the right of the Spanish people to determine their own destiny. The display of
Guernica was accompanied by the poem "The Victory of Guernica" by
Paul Éluard, and the pavilion displayed
The Reaper by
Joan Miró and
Mercury Fountain by
Alexander Calder, both of whom were sympathetic to the Republican cause. At
Guernicas Paris Exhibition unveiling it garnered little attention. The public's reaction to the painting was mixed.
Max Aub, one of the officials in charge of the Spanish pavilion, was compelled to defend the work against a group of Spanish officials who objected to the mural's modernist style and sought to replace it with a more traditional painting that was also commissioned for the exhibition,
Madrid 1937 (Black Aeroplanes) by Horacio Ferrer de Morgado. In contrast, Morgado's painting was a great success with Spanish Communists and with the public. and in a later essay he termed the painting "jerky" and "too compressed for its size", and compared it unfavorably to the "magnificently lyrical"
The Charnel House (1944–1948), a later antiwar painting by Picasso. Among the painting's admirers were art critic
Jean Cassou and poet
José Bergamín, both of whom praised the painting as quintessentially Spanish.
Michel Leiris perceived in
Guernica a foreshadowing: "On a black and white canvas that depicts ancient tragedy ... Picasso also writes our letter of doom: all that we love is going to be lost..."
Jean Cocteau also praised the painting and declared it a cross that "[General] Franco would always carry on his shoulder." Possibly as a riposte to Picasso's painting, the Nazis in June or July 1937 commissioned their official war artist
Claus Bergen to produce a patriotic painting of ''The Bombardment of Almeria by the 'Admiral Scheer''' (
National Maritime Museum, London). The work, done in a realistic style, was completed quickly for display in the
Great German Art Exhibition in Munich, 1937.
European tour Guernica, for which Picasso was paid 150,000 francs for his costs by the Spanish Republican government, was one of the few major paintings that Picasso did not sell directly to his exclusive contracted
art dealer and friend,
Paul Rosenberg. However, after its exhibition Rosenberg organised a four-man extravaganza
Scandinavian tour of 118 works by Picasso,
Matisse,
Braque, and
Henri Laurens. From January to April 1938 the tour visited
Oslo,
Copenhagen,
Stockholm, and
Gothenburg. Starting in late September
Guernica was exhibited in
London's
Whitechapel Art Gallery. This stop was organized by
Sir Roland Penrose with Labour Party leader
Clement Attlee, and the painting arrived in London on 30 September, the same day the
Munich Agreement was signed by the leaders of the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany. It then travelled to
Leeds,
Liverpool, and, in early 1939,
Manchester. There, Manchester Foodship For Spain, a group of artists and activists engaged in sending aid to the people of Spain, exhibited the painting in the HE Nunn & Co Ford automobile showroom for two weeks.
Guernica then returned briefly to France.
American tour After Francisco Franco's victory in Spain,
Guernica was sent to the United States to raise funds and support for Spanish refugees. It was first shown at the Valentine Gallery in New York City in May 1939. The San Francisco Museum of Art (later renamed the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) gave the work its first museum appearance in the United States from 27 August to 19 September 1939. New York's
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) then mounted an exhibition from 15 November until 7 January 1940, entitled:
Picasso: 40 Years of His Art. The exhibition, which was organized by MoMA's director
Alfred H. Barr in collaboration with the
Art Institute of Chicago, contained 344 works, including
Guernica and its studies. At Picasso's request the safekeeping of
Guernica was then entrusted to the Museum of Modern Art, and it was his expressed desire that the painting should not be delivered to Spain until liberty and democracy had been established in the country. Between 1953 and 1956 it was shown in
Brazil, then at the first Picasso retrospective in
Milan, Italy, and then in numerous other major European cities before returning to MoMA for a retrospective celebrating Picasso's 75th birthday. It then went to
Chicago and
Philadelphia. By this time, concern for the state of the painting resulted in a decision to keep it in one place: a room on MoMA's third floor, where it was accompanied by several of Picasso's preliminary studies and some of
Dora Maar's photographs of the work in progress. The studies and photos were often loaned for other exhibitions, but until 1981,
Guernica itself remained at MoMA. During the
Vietnam War, the room containing the painting became the site of occasional anti-war vigils. These were usually peaceful and uneventful, but on 28 February 1974,
Tony Shafrazi—ostensibly protesting Second Lieutenant
William Calley's petition for habeas corpus following his indictment and sentencing for the murder of 109 Vietnamese civilians during the
My Lai massacre—defaced the painting with red spray paint, painting the words "KILL LIES ALL". The paint was removed with relative ease from the varnished surface. ==Establishment in Spain==