It would have been market
day eighty years ago today in the small Basque town of Guernica when it was
bombed by the German Luftwaffe and the Italian Aeronautica Militare. It was the
first deliberate targeting of civilians by a military air force in the history
of the world.
 |
| Howard Daum, Combat, 1947 |
The number of dead was
probably around 300 with scores of people, and as Picasso reminded us, animals,
horribly injured, and the town destroyed. Within three months Pablo Picasso
made a monumental work that continues to haunt us today.
Picasso’s painting, while
under the protection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, captured the
imagination of Howard Daum. In the 1940s when Daum attended Atelier 17, the New
York workshop of Stanley William Hayter, he of course learned of Hayter’s
friendship and professional association with Picasso. Hayter’s own engraving
Combat, 1936, also referenced the Spanish Civil War, but pre-dates the bombing
of Guernica. The copper plate for that print was one of the few items that
Hayter brought with him in 1940 when he left Paris for New York.
Howard Daum’s version,
Combat, 1947, is a tour-de-force of Atelier 17 techniques. At 14 x 18 inches it
is a very large intaglio made in at least three states.
Howard Daum’s Combat
follows in the Hayter/Picasso legacy of iconic anti-war compositions with a
masterful Post-World-War II image.
#Daum #Howarddaum #Picasso
#Hayter #Stanleywilliamhayter #Atelier17 #Guernica #Spanishcivilwar #combat
#intaglio #1937
Daum, Howarddaum, Picasso, Hayter,
Stanleywilliamhayter, Atelier17, Guernica, Spanishcivilwar, combat, intaglio, 1937
