# Picasso paints Guernica for the Spanish Republic’s 1937 Paris exposition pavilion

Date: 1937

## The fact

In May–June 1937 [Picasso](/people/pablo-picasso) painted Guernica for the Spanish Republican pavilion at the Paris International Exposition, after the 26 April bombing of Gernika.

## Context

Dora Maar’s photographs of the work in progress are documented studio evidence, not gossip. The Republic paid. Franco did not commission it. Later Reina Sofía hanging is a 1992 access Fact.

Pablo Picasso is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

Reina Sofía’s Guernica page and Britannica independently date the 1937 pavilion commission.

Official or archival record: Museo Reina Sofía — Guernica (https://www.museoreinasofia.es/en/collection/artwork/guernica; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía).

## Significance

Anti-atrocity public-instrument path. High confidence on 1937.

A mural is not a PCF card. Split 1937 from 1944.

## What is established and what is not

Established: 1937 Guernica painted for the Paris exposition’s Spanish pavilion. Not established: that the painting stopped a bombing campaign, or that Picasso was in Gernika on 26 April.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

## People

- Pablo Picasso: https://factrail.ai/people/pablo-picasso

## Drivers

- Humanitarian Access: https://factrail.ai/drivers/humanitarian-access

## Sources

- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pablo-Picasso
- https://www.museoreinasofia.es/en/collection/artwork/guernica

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/pic-guernica-1937