Who painted Guernica?

Pablo Picasso painted Guernica.

Picasso created the large monochrome oil painting in 1937 in response to the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. The attack took place on April 26, 1937, and was carried out by German and Italian aircraft supporting Francisco Franco’s Nationalist forces.

Picasso made Guernica for the Spanish Republican government’s pavilion at the 1937 Paris International Exhibition. The painting uses fractured forms, anguished figures, a wounded horse, a bull, and stark contrasts of black, white, and gray. It does not provide a literal battlefield scene; its symbolism has encouraged extensive interpretation.

The work traveled internationally before returning to Spain in 1981, after Franco’s death and Spain’s transition toward democracy. It is now displayed at Madrid’s Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Guernica is often described as an anti-war masterpiece, but Picasso himself resisted assigning a single fixed meaning to every symbol.