[Music] Picasso's genica the most powerful anti-war statement in 20th century [Music] art painted in 1937 in response to the deliberate bumming of civilians in The Basque town of gika by Nazi war planes during the Spanish Civil War it shows writhing agonized figures trapped in the horror of the bombardment a mother clutches her baby a soldier lies dead partly dismembered a bull and a horse the artist's emblems of his native Spain rage wounded across the giant canvas tongues are replaced by swords in screams of Agony Picasso created the work for the Paris Expo of that year he read the news of the gika atrocity in April and immediately set to work at a furious Pace finishing the enormous mural almost 8 m long in just 35 days his pallette of matte blacks whites and Grays not only conveys The Bleak horror of his subject matter but Echoes the news photos of the time as well as the photographic work of his then lover Dora Mar who documented the making of the work in a series of intense images genica was a rare piece of public art for Picasso and after its display in Paris it set off on an international tour showing all over Europe America and Elsewhere for many years in support of the artists dream of a free and Democratic Spain yet despite its specific subject matter the work stands as a statement about all wars so powerful is it that during the Vietnam War it was defaced in New York's Museum of modernart by a [Music] protester a tapestry copy of gika hangs in the United Nations building in New York outside the room where the security Council meets and forms the backdrop to many dignitary speeches it's said that it was covered by a curtain for the announcement of the Iraq War by General Coen Powell in 2003 whether or not that is true it surely the ultimate Testament to the painting's power Picasso who never returned to live in Spain after his self-imposed Exile in 1934 stipulated in his will that Gena should not go back to Spain until Democratic rule was reestablished in his homeland 2 years after his death in 1973 Franco himself died and the mighty canvas found its final permanent home in Spain in 1981 now in a specially curated Exhibition at the Raina sopia Museum in Madrid exactly 80 years after its creation it seems as relevant as ever