This superb book about Pablo Picasso's most famous painting begins with his annual summer visit to Spain with his family in 1934, the year that would be the last he would spend in his homeland. That fall an uprising by left wing miners in Asturias was brutally repressed by General Francisco Franco, with the resultant death of approximately 4,000 miners and their supporters. Continued clashes between the Nationalists and the Republicans led to civil war in Spain beginning in July 1936, and early the following year the Nationalists led by Franco was making inroads into Northern Spain, although his troops met with strong resistance in the País Vasco (Basque Country). Franco enlisted the support of Hitler's Luftwaffe, which conducted a terror bombing raid on the city of Guernica (or Gernika in Euskera, the Basque language), the spiritual center of the Basque Country, on Monday April 26, 1937, the traditional market day when roughly 10,000 residents and visitors would shop in open markets throughout the city. The bombing campaign, which was designed to break the spirit of the Euskadi resistance, left over 1,600 people dead, and after news and photos of the tragedy reached Paris Picasso quickly drew sketches and completed his masterpiece painting, in a period of only five weeks, doing so in time to have it displayed in the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris Exposition that summer.

This book next describes the painting's impact during World War II, within Europe and in the United States after it was transported there for safe keeping shortly before German troops invaded France. At the same time, the author describes Picasso's political activities and artistic work in France during the war years, and his decision to become a member of the French Communist Party after the war ended, which caused the US government to bar him from entry during the Red Scare and anti-communist hysteria during the 1950s, when his great work continued to be displayed there.

Guernica's impact on major postwar artists is also discussed at length in this book, along with the political situation in Spain and the US, followed by its return to Spain in 1981 once the country had instituted a stable democracy, and its installation into its permanent home in 1992 at the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, where I saw it for the first time last summer.

Guernica is a superb and comprehensive exploration of Picasso's greatest and most influential painting, which I would recommend to anyone interested in Picasso and his work, especially those of us who are fortunate to have seen it. I'll attend a talk at the Edinburgh International Book Festival next month which will feature two authors that have written new books about Guernica and Picasso's political activism, and I'll undoubtedly pick up and read those books as well. ( )

[If you are reading Guernica based on Nancy Pearl's recommendation in Book Lust To Go: the very first thing you need to know about the book Guernica is that it follows the life of Pablo Picasso's painting and is less about the Basque region or the bombing that inspired the art.
But, back to Guernica (the book): Picasso was commissioned to make a political statement through art in reaction to the three hours of horrific, indiscriminate, nonstop slaughter of the Basque town of Gernika. Later, the painting was sent to America to raise funds for the Spanish Refugee Relief Campaign to help alleviate the horrible conditions in the internment camps. Later still, Paloma Picasso used the painting as blackmail whenever a particular region wanted to show the painting in their museums. The influence of Picasso's painting was far-reaching. After the May 16th 1968 Mylai slaughter people remembered Guernica. ( )

One of the most powerful paintings of the twentieth century and its creator presented with fascinating historical, political and biographical context. Beginning with the tragic events in Spain leading up to to the second world war, van Hensbergen provides a engaging account of culture and art during and after the war in Europe and America as Guernica, the painting, travels from France across the ocean and finally back home to Spain. Though at times the author goes a bit over the top with his admiration for the art world, for someone unfamiliar with the battles artists encountered in their attempts to bridge the gap between mere aesthetics and political statement, this book provides an excellent primer. ( )