April 26, 1937
Monday, market day.
In Guernica, a small town in northern Spain, people were trading in the market when the Nazi German Luftwaffe, coordinated with Franco's forces, carried out more than three hours of carpet bombing on the civilian town.
It was the first modern air raid in history to target a civilian population center.
Six weeks later, Paris
Picasso received the news in Paris.
He painted no planes, no uniforms, nothing concrete that could be justified away. He wanted to paint everyone in every war.
In six weeks, he finished this 3.49m-by-7.76m painting: black, white, and gray, without a drop of color.
1937, Paris International Exposition
First shown at the Spanish Pavilion.
Viewers fell silent.
Picasso later said he chose black and white because war itself strips color from life.
1939, New York
Picasso placed the painting in the care of MoMA in New York.
With one condition:
"Do not return it until democracy is restored in Spain."
A painting began its own exile.
1960s, Vietnam War
Guernica became a central image of the global anti-war movement.
No one authorized it, and no one stopped it.
It appeared on posters, street graffiti, and protest banners. A painting walked out of the museum and into the streets.
1981, Madrid
Six years after Franco died, Spain democratized.
The painting finally came home and is now held at Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid.
Picasso had died eight years earlier and did not live to see that day.
February 5, 2003, New York
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the UN Security Council, seeking support for the invasion of Iraq.
In the corridor beside the podium hung a tapestry copy of Guernica. Before the speech, UN officials covered it with a piece of blue cloth.
The reason: it was "not suitable" as a live TV backdrop.
Cameras around the world turned to that blue cloth.