Death, destruction and deity: painting Guernica

In the first week of January 1937, six months into the Spanish Civil War, Josep Renau, Republican Spains dynamic young director of Bellas Artes, approached Picasso to commission a large work of art for the Spanish Republic Pavilion in the forthcoming Exposition Internationale des Arts in Paris. It would hang pride of place. As the worlds most famous artist, and as the director of the Prado museum in absentia on a salary of 15,000 pesetas per annum, Picasso was pressured to produce a powerful pr