MADRID.- An illustration showing the 1937 painting Guernica by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso as a robot scans it to get new information for its conservation at Museo Reina Sofia in downtown Madrid, central Spain, 24 January 2012. On the ocassion of Guernicas 75th anniversary Telefonica Foundation sponsors a project entitled Travel to the Center of Guernica to get more information about the conservation of the art work.
EPA/F ALVARADO. ArtDaily.org
From Museo Reina Sofia on the 2011 30th Anniversary of Gurernica's long awaited arrival in Spain. "The long exile of the painting, which was in the custody of New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) from 1939 until its move to Spain, symbolised the open wound caused by the Spanish Civil War, since Picasso insisted that it would come to Spain only when democratic liberties had been restored."
Museo Reina Sofía is temporarily exhibiting the large-format painting Femme assise dans un fauteuil (Dora) by Pablo Picasso (1938), on special loan from the Fondation Beyeler in Riehen/Basel.
The painting is being shown in connection with other works by Picasso in the Museum's collection, such as the emblematic “weeping women” related to Guernica and also Femme assise dans un fauteuil gris (1939). The loan represents a unique oportunity to see these two works together, something of special interest since both paintings, of great violence and dramatism, use the body of the protagonist to convey the events of 1938 and 1939. These years, with war raging in Spain, were a troubled period in Picasso's production, and during this time his chromatic range was reduced to gray tones. The protagonist of these canvases, Dora Maar - Picasso's lover during the period in which he painted Guernica - contributed decisively to the awakening of his political consciousness. During the years that their relationship lasted, Maar modelled many times for the artist and was the subject of some of his most characteristic portraits.
