In yesterday's post we looked at the power of textiles, exploring and analysing the socio-cultural issues tackled by contemporary artists working with this medium. Also tapestries can become powerful vehicles for strong messages, let's consider for example the tapestry version of Pablo Picasso's "Guernica".
Created in 1937 as a reaction to the Nazi bombing of the Basque town of Guernica in Spain that destroyed most of the town and killed hundreds of civilians, the black-and-white painting was a highly symbolical cubist representation of the atrocities of the bombing. The work was painted in a relatively short time, but it was preceded by intense studies and sketches.
The story goes that a Gestapo officer went into Picasso's apartment in Paris, looked at a photo of the painting and asked the artist if he had done it. "No," Picasso replied, "you did".
As the years passed the work became a universal symbol of the atrocities of any war and conflict. Nelson A. Rockefeller, a friend of Picasso's, commissioned in 1955 a tapestry version of the painting.
The artist turned to Aubusson-based weavers René and Jacqueline de la Baume Dürrbach, to create three woven copies of the piece. Each weaving took about six months to complete. Picasso worked with Jacqueline de la Baume Dürrbach on the preparatory sketches that were going to be used to turn the painting into a tapestry. The painting was divided into 6 sections and each of them was replicated on cardboard strips as large as a loom that were then used as the guiding patterns for the weaving.
Picasso went on to make further sketches of his most famous works that were transformed into tapestries and woven by hand at Atelier Cavalaire, the studio of Jacqueline de la Baume Dürrbach in the Var region of the south of France (he signed them all next to the Cavalaire logo).
One of the "Guernica" tapestries was then hung at the Headquarters of the United Nations in New York City at the entrance to the Security Council room. In February 2003, when Colin Powell gave a press conference at the UN about the war in Iraq in 2003, the "Guernica" was covered. The event sparked debates with diplomats claiming the Bush Administration pressured UN officials to cover the tapestry as it would have been inconvenient to argue about the necessity of a war in front of a masterpiece showing its horrors.
Textile students willing to rediscover the origins of the tapestry and who may be in Italy in the next few days can admire the preparatory sketches for the artwork at the exhibition "Guernica. Icon of Peace" (until 5th December) at the Padua-based Museo Storico della Terza Armata (Historical Museum of the Third Army, Palazzo Camerini, via Altinate, 59).
Organised to celebrate the armistice that followed the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, this exhibition gives the chance to discover also documents, letters and mementos linked to the Italian Terza Armata (Third Army) in the 100th Anniversary of the end of the First World War and to pay homage to the war victims while inviting visitors to ponder about the importance of living in peace.
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