Picasso's war : the destruction of Guernica and the masterpiece that changed the world /

Picasso hadn't yet agreed to create a mural for Spain's pavilion in Paris' 1937 international exposition, but once news of the Nazi bombing and utter destruction of the historic Basque town of Guernica reached the expatriate Spanish artist, visions of a painting in protest of that horrific massacre of innocents quickly coalesced. The result was the immense masterpiece Guernica, which, as Martin so resoundingly chronicles, became "the world's most recognized symbol of war's brutality." Martin, the author most recently of Beethoven's Hair (2000), relates in engrossing detail the entire, never before fully documented story of the genesis, reception, and fate of Guernica, freshly considering overlooked aspects of Spain's civil war and Franco's collusion with Hitler, the ongoing struggle for Basque autonomy, and Picasso's refusal to allow Guernica to travel to Franco's Spain. Initially castigated for being too vague in its condemnation of the fascist attack, the painting's timeless and universal power soon made itself known as war erupted around the globe. Martin's poignant portrayal of Picasso and gripping history of a painting that galvanized a world assaulted by new extremes of systematic violence illuminate the complex and always provocative nexus of art, politics, and social conscience. Donna Seaman

Picasso watched closely from his adopted Paris as the Spanish Civil War unfolded, and when German bombers leveled the Basque village of Guernica, the previously apolitical Picasso felt stirred to action. Created at a frenzied pace, his painting Guernica was both homage to his Catalonian homeland and a scathing indictment of bloodshed. While Martin (Beethoven's Hair) meticulously describes the painting's creation and context, much of the book focuses on the controversies that haunted the canvas for decades. When Guernica was first introduced at the Spanish pavilion of the 1937 International Exposition of Art and Technology Applied to Modern Life in Paris, it was ignored by many, criticized by others for ugliness-and even for not being political enough. Later acknowledged as a classic, it was housed in New York's Museum of Modern Art, safe from the war overseas. By the '60s, voices grew stronger asking for its return to Spain, the country that had originally commissioned its creation. With Franco still in power, an aging Picasso asked that the painting go to Spain only when the country was once again free from oppression. Within this larger narrative, Martin weaves a memoir of his own trek to visit Guernica, which finally arrived in Spain in the 1980s. The culmination of this thread, when Martin coincidentally views the painting on September 11, 2001, brings the narrative into the contemporary world and highlights Guernica's brutal relevance today. (Oct. 28) Forecast: Martin's Out of Silence: An Autistic Boy's Journey into Language and Communication (1994) was widely reviewed and acclaimed, and Beethoven's Hair (2000) was a Washington Post Book of the Year and a Los Angeles Times bestseller. Look for strong national reviews, many of which will use the book as a springboard to discuss more recent political art (and the lack thereof). (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

The author of the best-selling Beethoven's Hair reconstructs the history of a town and a painting. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Imaginative cultural historian Martin (Beethoven's Hair, 2000, etc.) crafts a well-integrated and fascinating account of Picasso's famous painting and the horrible events that inspired it. The author's signature approach to seemingly offbeat subjects is careful research filtered through a novelistic sensibility to grasp the inherent story, which he unfolds in the engaging, almost offhand manner of a fictional amateur sleuth. Martin is, first and foremost, a consummate storyteller who deftly weaves such multiple disciplines as politics, history, art, science, and even current events into a narrative forming a coherent whole. A case in point is his handling here of the motivation behind Picasso's change of heart regarding his previous, adamantly apolitical stance on the Spanish Civil War, then only a few months old. Commissioned by a Republican delegation to devise a prominent work for the courtyard of the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 World's Fair in Paris, Picasso, who disdained "poster" (i.e., political) art, originally contemplated a mural whose subject would be the artist in his studio. But the brutal attack on the civilian population of the Basque town Gernika, intended by Franco and his Nazi allies to inspire terror and capitulation, had an energizing effect on the artist. Within two weeks of Gernika's bombardment and strafing by Goering's Luftwaffe, Picasso was hard at work on the monumental canvas that was to become the most political artwork of the 20th century. Martin goes beyond the obvious, however, in providing additional, less well-known motives for Picasso's sudden engagement. Having agreed to become the titular director of the Museo del Prado in September of the previous year, the artist was outraged by Franco's barbaric disregard for the safety of the nation's treasures and quietly agreed to their removal to safety in Valencia. An engrossing story of a landmark work of art and the struggle "to fashion meaning out of unimaginable evil, once more to offer hope."