Guernica by Pablo Picasso

This is one of my favourite paintings  although I don’t have a print of it. Searching online, this one from Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía came out  the clearest.  Guernica, in the Spannish Basque country, was where the Nazis sent their planes on bombing practice in 1937, killing 1,654 people. The painting is Picasso’s response to that  event.  
    In 1984, I travelled right across northern Spain with friends in a yellow Opel Cadette. When we reached Guerinca (Gernika in Basque), it was fiesta time, so naturally we joined in. There is a mural of the painting in a local square, but the teenage girls we chummed up with didn’t like it. I could understand why.  They saw their home town as a vibrant, modern place, (which it was). They didn’t want to be forever saddled with its past.
    We had a great time in Gernika and our hosts were a hoot.