50 Fun Facts About Guernica

In Guernica, what is the woman at the far left edge holding in her arms?

A dead child. Most of the town's men were away at the front, so the raid fell mainly on women and children, and they fill Picasso's canvas.

Guernica answers the 1937 bombing of a Basque town during which conflict?

The Spanish Civil War ended in 1939 with Franco's victory, so Picasso sent the canvas abroad and refused to let it hang in Spain while Franco ruled.

To which museum was Guernica moved in 1992?

Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, took it when Spain's twentieth-century art was gathered under one roof, a move that defied Picasso's own wish for where it should hang.

Guernica is painted in which palette?

Grey, black and white echo the press photographs that brought Picasso the news, giving the mural the immediacy of a newspaper picture.

Roughly how wide is Picasso's mural Guernica?

About 7.8 metres wide and 3.5 tall, it was made for Spain's pavilion, which Picasso had visited to see the space his mural was to fill.

Which animal fills the upper left corner of Guernica, its tail rising like a plume of smoke?

A bull. Asked what it stood for, Picasso would only say 'this bull is a bull', leaving viewers to argue whether it is Spain, Franco or the artist himself.

Guernica was bombed on a Monday, traditionally the town's day for what?

A farmers' market usually drew people in from the surrounding hills to the main square; whether that Monday's market had been called off because of the war is still debated.

The German air unit that carried out the raid on Guernica was known by what name?

Condor Legion crews used Spain as a testing ground, trying out over its towns the bombing tactics Germany turned on the rest of Europe a few years later.

Guernica is often traced back to The Third of May 1808, a firing-squad scene by which Spanish painter?

Francisco Goya's firing squad stayed with Picasso: in 1951 he restaged the scene as Massacre in Korea, with gunmen in armour taking aim at a huddle of unarmed women.

The German officer who chose Guernica as a target was a younger cousin of which WWI figure?

The Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen, was shot down in 1918 while chasing a pilot who had just fired on his cousin Wolfram, then flying his first combat mission.

German bombers did not attack Guernica alone, so aircraft from which other country joined the raid?

Italy sent its Aviazione Legionaria, and the French paper Picasso read led with 'a thousand incendiary bombs dropped by the planes of Hitler and Mussolini'.

George Steer's dispatch from the ruins of Guernica ran in which London newspaper?

The Times ran it two days after the raid, and within the week Picasso had dropped his first idea for the mural and begun sketching Guernica.

Guernica was commissioned for the Spanish pavilion at a 1937 international exposition in which city?

Paris gave it mixed reviews; the mural only became an icon on the travels that followed.

Why was Guernica's 'return' to Spain after Franco's death not really a return?

It had never been in Spain: painted in France and sent straight out on tour, Guernica first touched Spanish soil only six years after Franco died.

Which photographer and Picasso companion found the studio for Guernica and documented its creation?

Dora Maar knew the building from anti-fascist meetings she had attended there, and once Picasso moved in she photographed the mural at every stage.

What did Picasso have specially formulated for Guernica instead of ordinary artists' colours?

Matte house paint, mixed to his order with the least possible gloss, covered a canvas so large that Picasso painted parts of it from a ladder.

From his first sketch on 1 May 1937, roughly how long did Picasso take to finish Guernica?

About 5 weeks: he finished on 4 June, and unusually for him let invited artists such as Alberto Giacometti watch the mural take shape.

In Guernica, what small sign of hope did Picasso put beside the broken sword in the dead soldier's hand?

A flower. Picasso refused to paint a hero: the soldier lies in pieces, his sword shattered and his open palm scored like the stigmata of a martyr.

What blazes over the head of the suffering horse in Guernica, shaped like an all-seeing eye?

A bare light bulb is the scene's only piece of twentieth-century technology, and Picasso added it at the last moment, as the mural neared completion.

In Guernica, the horse's nostrils and upper teeth form a 'hidden' image of what?

A human skull. Picasso first drew the horse with its head bowed to the ground, then raised it in mid-May into the screaming, death's-head centrepiece.

Which stated target of the Guernica raid, on the edge of town, was left standing by the bombers?

A bridge: the Germans said they were cutting off the retreat of government troops, yet no bomb hit it or the arms factory nearby while the centre of town burned.

When a German officer saw a photo of Guernica and asked 'Did you do that?', what did Picasso reportedly reply?

'No, you did.' The officer is said to have seen only a photograph: the mural itself had crossed the Atlantic in 1939 and spent the war in America.

Which poet's 'The Victory of Guernica' accompanied the painting in the 1937 Spanish pavilion?

Paul Éluard and Picasso were inseparable in those years, and the actress María Casares recites his Guernica poem in a 1950 short film about the painting.

Which notorious deal was signed on 30 September 1938, the day Guernica arrived in London for exhibition?

The Munich Agreement was signed as the mural landed in Britain, sent on tour by Spain's elected government to raise funds and support for its war against Franco.

For most of the period from 1939 to 1981, Guernica was kept for safekeeping at which institution?

Museum of Modern Art, New York, was meant as a refuge from the war in Europe, and Picasso later extended the loan until Spain was a democracy again.

In 1974 Tony Shafrazi sprayed 'KILL LIES ALL' across Guernica in a protest linked to which war?

The Vietnam War: he was protesting over the My Lai massacre case, and because the canvas was heavily varnished, the red paint wiped off with ease.

Guernica reached Spain in 1981 just before which Picasso anniversary?

His birth, a hundred years before: Picasso was born on 25 October 1881, and he died in 1973 without ever seeing the mural hang in Spain.

Picasso first vowed that Guernica would be handed over to Spain only when what was restored?

The Republic never came back: Franco was followed by a king and a democratic constitution, and only after years of negotiation did the mural cross the Atlantic.

A tapestry copy of Guernica hangs at the UN in New York at the entrance to which chamber?

The Security Council entrance is where diplomats stop to speak to the press, so the tapestry's screaming figures often end up on the news behind them.

In February 2003 the UN's Guernica tapestry was curtained off during press conferences about which impending war?

Iraq: officials said TV crews wanted a plainer backdrop, while diplomats blamed US pressure, since Colin Powell was arguing for invasion in front of an anti-war icon.

Which American collector commissioned the full-size Guernica tapestry that his estate later placed at the United Nations?

Nelson Rockefeller had the tapestry woven at full size for himself; only after his death did his estate hand it to the UN, in 1985.

Franco's side denied bombing Guernica at all, so whom did its generals accuse of burning the town?

Its own defenders: the next day a general went on the radio to claim 'the reds' had dynamited and burned the town, and called the foreign reporters liars.

Why have Madrid's curators turned down every request to lend Guernica to the Basque Country?

It is too fragile to move, they say, after decades on tour; even a loan to Barcelona for the 1992 Olympic Games was refused.

While he painted Guernica, Picasso held the honorary title of director of which Madrid museum?

The Prado's director never took up the post in person: Picasso had last visited Spain in 1934 and stayed away for the rest of his life.

The bombing of Guernica opened the way for Franco's capture of which major city?

Bilbao was the prize beyond: the town sat on the road between Franco's front line and the city, so any retreat or advance had to pass through it.

The Tree of Gernika, symbol of Basque liberties, is what kind of tree?

An oak: it and the assembly house beside it came through the 1937 bombing untouched, and each successor has been raised from the old tree's own acorns.

When Guernica first went on show in Madrid in 1981, what stood between the canvas and its visitors?

Bulletproof glass, built to resist bombs as well, screened a canvas that a protester had managed to spray-paint in its previous home seven years before.

How does the Guernica tapestry at the United Nations differ most visibly from Picasso's painting?

It adds shades of brown: the weavers worked in browns and taupes, a touch of colour that one critic said considerably weakens the picture's effect.

While painting Guernica, Picasso declared his 'abhorrence' of which group that had 'sunk Spain in an ocean of pain and death'?

The military caste: he issued the statement to silence rumours that he sympathised with Franco's side, asking how anyone could think him 'in agreement with reaction and death'.

Guernica is twinned with Pforzheim in Germany and with which US city?

Boise, Idaho, was a natural match: descendants of Basque immigrants keep a downtown 'Basque Block' there and stage the Jaialdi festival every five years.

Which sculptor made Large Figure in a Shelter, installed in Guernica in 1990 as a monument to peace?

Henry Moore had visited Picasso's studio in 1937 and seen the Guernica mural in progress; half a century on, a cast of his own bronze stands in the bombed town.

Which French director, later famous for Hiroshima mon amour, made a 1950 short film called Guernica?

Alain Resnais and his co-director Robert Hessens set Picasso's images to a poem about the bombing, read aloud by the actress María Casares.

Guernica's fractured figures speak the language of which art movement?

Cubism here takes on a history painting: the figures sit in the pyramid layout of the old masters, yet the picture refuses to show war as heroic.

Which actress has part of Guernica tattooed on her forearm after seeing it in Madrid at 18?

Kristen Stewart wore fake tattoos for a film role, then swapped one for the real thing: the picture's 'little shred of light', she said, is what stayed with her.

Since the 1990s Basque nationalists have campaigned to move Guernica to which museum?

The Guggenheim, designed by Frank Gehry, opened in 1997, and since then rival Basque parties have joined forces to ask Madrid for the painting.

Picasso painted Guernica on the street where which novelist had set his tale The Unknown Masterpiece?

Honoré de Balzac set his story of an obsessed painter in that very street, and Picasso had illustrated the tale some years before he moved in.

Which American sculptor's Mercury Fountain stood near Guernica in the Spanish pavilion of 1937?

Alexander Calder's fountain ran with real liquid mercury, a memorial to the besieged mining town of Almadén; it now flows behind glass because the vapour is toxic.

In which unusual venue was Guernica exhibited in Manchester in early 1939?

A Ford car showroom was the only space big enough: the young artists and activists who hosted it unrolled the canvas and nailed it straight to the wall.

Which Picasso painting of 1937, now in Britain's Tate collection, grew out of a figure in Guernica?

The Weeping Woman was bought straight from Picasso by Roland Penrose, the Englishman who went on to bring Guernica itself to Britain.

Seven years after Guernica, Picasso made his politics official by joining which party in France?

The Communists: he joined the French party in 1944 and stayed a member for life, even after it criticised his 1953 portrait of Stalin as not realistic enough.