For two weeks in April, the vast tapestry reproduction of Picasso’s Guernica was put on show at the Whitechapel Gallery in London – where the picture was first shown in Britain…
From Guernica to Whitechapel, via the United Nations
WORKERS, MAY 2009 ISSUE
The huge tapestry reproduction of Picasso’s masterpiece Guernica, expressing the full horror of the bombing of civilians in the small Spanish town by that name in 1937, was displayed at the Whitechapel Gallery in east London from 5 to 18 April.
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| Guernica: the huge canvas is 11 feet tall and 25.6 feet wide. |
The original painting, too fragile to travel, has been in Madrid’s Reina Sofia Art Gallery since the demise of Franco, chief author of the atrocity committed by German and Italian planes at Guernica. But the tapestry reproduction is a splendid work in its own right, created in collaboration with Picasso in 1955 by weaver Jacqueline de la Baume Dürrbach, and robust enough to travel from New York, where it usually hangs in the entrance to the United Nations Security Council Chamber. So powerful is the image, that it was infamously covered with a curtain in 2003 when Colin Powell, then US secretary of state, addressed the UN before the invasion of Iraq.
It will come as a surprise to many that Picasso’s original painting was itself shown at the Whitechapel Gallery when it was less than 2 years old in 1939, its only showing ever in Britain. That historic occasion is now being celebrated 70 years later, to coincide with the relaunching of the gallery after a major extension and refurbishment.
War, and the threat of war
Just consider the situation in January 1939. The Nazis were about to launch World War 2. General Franco, supported by Hitler, was in the process of conquering what was left of free Spain. Some 2,400 had travelled to Spain from Britain to join the International Brigades, but the British government was about to recognise Franco’s regime. In this context Stepney Trade Union Council asked Picasso to allow Guernica to be brought to Whitechapel from France to raise awareness of the Spanish Civil War. Picasso agreed, asking for a pair of boots to be donated as the price of admission.
15,000 came to see the painting in the first week it was shown, great heaps of boots were placed under it, and £250 raised for the Spanish Republican cause. It was in fact too late to help Spain prevent Franco’s seizure of power from the Republican government – all but complete two months later – but not too late to help inspire the more general fight against fascism which was becoming urgent throughout Europe and beyond.
British workers had been hammered in the Great Depression, which capitalism was unable to end except through another Great War. It was only the following year after Guernica came to London, that German planes were bombing Britain.
That was a different world, when the Russian Revolution inspired many British workers to a different level of thought, and a different kind of internationalism than they have today. There are young men volunteering to travel from Britain to fight abroad in our time, but without a working class perspective, and we pay the price.
British workers occupied a pivotal position in world affairs back in 1939, based on the simple fact that Britain was an important industrial country – workshop of the world. This was our great strength as a class. But it was Clement Attlee, leader of the Labour Party, on the podium making a speech at the opening of the Guernica exhibition in 1939. Our great weakness was and remains political. Change that and we can change everything.