Guernica: genesis of a masterpiece. The war painted by Picasso and the Neorealists.
Today, Wednesday, July 20, 2022, the exhibition “Guernica: genesis of a masterpiece. The war painted by Picasso and the Neorealists” will be inaugurated at the Palazzo Ferretti, in Cortona, a town in the province of Arezzo, in Tuscany, Italy.
The exhibition will give the opportunity of admiring forty-two prints of the preparatory drawings made by Pablo Picasso for his famous painting of 1937, entitled “Guernica”, and 17 works, including oils and engravings, created by artists of Neorealism, among them Renato Guttuso, Antonio and Xavier Bueno, Aligi Sassu and Giuseppe Migneco.
In his monumental-sized painting “Guernica”, Picasso managed to immortalize on canvas the massacre and violence of the most remembered event of the Spanish Civil War with an extraordinary power and effectiveness that transform the painting into a symbol against the violence of every war and an extraordinary icon of peace.
Before creating the large oil painting, Picasso made numerous drawings and preparatory sketches. The prints of these sketches form the core of the exhibition presented by The Dalí Universe in the splendid halls of the Ferretti Palace, a historic building designed and frescoed by the painter and architect of Nuremberg, Marco Tuscher.
The preparatory drawings of Picasso’s masterpiece, inspired by the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica on 26 April 1937, present the key figures of the final composition.
“These preparatory drawings, which today are part of the permanent collection of the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid”, announces Beniamino Levi, President of the Dalí Universe, “are extraordinary works that highlight the different moods through which Picasso passed during the realization of his Guernica, the painting most visited in the world after the ʻMona Lisaʼ by Leonardo da Vinci”.
In 1990, Picasso's heirs authorized, by an unprecedented decision in the history of art, a limited edition of this incredible work that can be admired at Palazzo Ferretti. This edition is a dutiful tribute to those who work for peace in the world and fraternity among Nations.
The exhibition will be officially opened on Wednesday, July 20, 2022, and it will be open to the public from Thursday, Jul 21st, 2022.
“Guernica: genesis of a masterpiece. The war painted by Picasso and the Neorealists” exhibition will be open to visitors until January 6, 2023.
