Picasso's Gernika and the Reina Sofia Museum of Contemporary Art in Madrid

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 Detail of Guernica (Gernika), Pablo Picasso. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Reina Sofía, Madrid.  All photos by Gerry Dawes©2012 / gerrydawes@aol.com.

Excerpted from Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain - Foreword by José Andrés Volume I Preview

 

In October 2013, I led a group of 26 Commonwealth Club of California Taste of Spain Tour 2013 participants, plus baseball great Keith Hernandez and Bon and Lisbeth Suyehira Hartline, Bon a new-found friend from my hometown of Anna, Illinois, on an eleven-day trip from Madrid to La Mancha, Córdoba, Sevilla, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Ronda, Granada, Almagro (La Mancha again), Toledo and for a final night and a farewell dinner in Chinchón, a magical 16th-century village 45 southeast of Madrid.

Here is the first entry on our visit to the Reina Sofia Museum of Contemporary Art in Madrid.  The star attraction here is Gernika, Pablo Picasso's immortal Spanish Civil War painting, but there is much much more.  When I was last there, there were no restrictions on non-flash photographs of Gernika (Dalí, Gris, Miró and Picasso can be photographed!). The Spanish bureaucracy is returning to their ways of yesteryear and photographing Gernika is forbidden.   My photos are from an earlier visit. 

 

 

Franco’s allowing Hitler's Nazi German Luftwaffe's Condor Legion and the Fascist Italian Aviazione Legionaria to bomb Gernika's civilian population had inflamed international opinion against his regime and inspired Pablo Picasso to create his now famous monumental anti-war painting, Guernica (Gernika), Reina Sofia Museum, Photo by Gerry Dawes. 

 

Highly Recommend Book on Picasso's Guernica (Gernika), Guernica:  The Biography of a Twentieth-Century Icon by Gijs van Hensbergen.

 

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Constructive comments are welcome and encouraged.

 

Help Support Gerry Dawes's Spain & Its Content

 

If you enjoy these blog posts, please consider a contribution to help me continue the work of gathering all this great information and these photographs for Gerry Dawes's Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel. Contributions of $5 and up will be greatly appreciated. Contributions of $100 or more will be acknowledged on the blog. Please click on this secure link to Paypal to make your contribution.

 

Text and photographs copyright by Gerry Dawes©2021.  Using photographs without crediting Gerry Dawes©2021 on Facebook.  Publication without my written permission is not authorized.

 

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  Shall deeds of Caesar or Napoleon ring
More true than Don Quixote's vapouring?
Hath winged Pegasus more nobly trod
Than Rocinante stumbling up to God?

 

Poem by Archer M. Huntington inscribed under the Don Quixote on his horse Rocinante bas-relief sculpture by his wife, Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington,

in the courtyard of the Hispanic Society of America’s incredible museum at 613 W. 155th Street, New York City.

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In 2019, again ranked in the Top 50 Gastronomy Blogs and Websites for Gastronomists & Gastronomes in 2019 by Feedspot. (Last Updated Oct 23, 2019) 

"The Best Gastronomy blogs selected from thousands of Food blogs, Culture blogs and Food Science blogs in our index using search and social metrics. We’ve carefully selected these websites because they are actively working to educate, inspire, and empower their readers with frequent updates and high-quality information."  

36. Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel

 
About Gerry Dawes

My good friend Gerry Dawes, the unbridled Spanish food and wine enthusiast cum expert whose writing, photography, and countless crisscrossings of the peninsula have done the most to introduce Americans—and especially American food professionals—to my country's culinary life." -- Chef-restaurateur-humanitarian José Andrés, Nobel Peace Prize Nominee and Oscar Presenter 2019

Gerry Dawes was the Producer and Program Host of Gerry Dawes & Friends, a weekly radio progam on Pawling Public Radio in Pawling, New York (streaming live and archived at www.pawlingpublicradio.org and at www.beatofthevalley.com.)

Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés. 

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 

 

Pilot for a reality television series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
 

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com