On September 10, 1981 Picasso’s most celebrated painting was brought from New York to Madrid by the Spanish airline
Sunday, September 10, will be the 25th anniversary of the arrival in Spain of the painting Guernica by the Spanish painter Pablo Ruiz Picasso, regarded by many as one of the greatest works of art of the 20th century.
On the evening of Tuesday, September 9, 1981, an Iberia B-747 named „Lope de Vega“ took off from New York’s JFK airport with the Guernica in the cargo hold.
The shipment included the painting, the frame, and the sketches and drawings Picasso had made before completing the work in Paris in 1937, at the height of the Spanish Civil War. The canvas alone, which is 776 cm long and 349 high, weighs 516 kilogrammes.
Six hours and seven minutes later, at 8:27 a.m., the airliner landed in Madrid amongst extraordinary security measures.
For most of the previous 44 years the painting had been on display at New York’s MOMA, but it was also shown in Paris, Milan, Oslo, London, Munich, Stockholm, and Sao Paulo. Picasso, who died in exile in 1973, had expressed his wish that the painting should utlimately be hung in Madrid’s Prado Museum, but only after the restoration of „public liberties and democratic institutions“.
Note: Iberia is today not only Spain’s leading airline, but it is also market leader on routes between Europe and Latin America. In 2005 it posted revenues of 5,603 million euros and net earnings of 395.8 million euros. Along with its franchise partner Iberia Regional, Iberia operates some 1,000 flights every day to some 100 destinations in Spain and around the world, carrying 32.4 million passengers in 2005. Iberia is a member of the oneworld airline alliance whose members together make more than 8,000 flights a day to 595 destinations in 132 countries. To learn more about the Iberia Group, visit http://grupo.iberia.com
