The Basque Government has made the transfer of the Guernica from Picasso to Euskadi a State cause. The Lehendakari, Imanol Pradales, has once again demanded this Friday that the iconic painting can be exhibited in the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao for nine months as a gesture of historical memory and “symbolic reparation” towards the Basque people. Whenever the Basque authorities have asked to receive the work of art displayed in Reina Sofía, they have been met with a refusal from the Ministry of Culture, which alleges reasons of conservation and poor condition of the canvas to oppose the transfer. “It would seem to me to be a serious political error to close the door on this issue,” Pradales told the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, today in the meeting they held at the Moncloa.
He Guernica It is a recurring desire of Basque nationalists. The Reina Sofía has never agreed to these claims, not even in cases as exceptional as the request made in 2000 by the MoMA in New York. “The great icon of our museum must remain without exceptions outside the institution’s loan policy,” states a four-page report from the Reina Sofía on the “history of requests” received. He Guernica It is an emblem for the Reina Sofía, at the height of the importance that, for example, the Mona Lisa, by Leonardo, for the Louvre Museum in Paris.
All proposals have always been rejected because “from a technical and professional point of view it is considered absolutely and categorically inappropriate to access the requested loan.” This same argument appears in the response that the aforementioned Madrid museum has sent to the Basque Government to oppose the latest formal request made by the Pradales Executive.
The first request to carry the Guernica to the Basque Country was produced in 1997 by the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, but it did not prosper. The Basque Government has not given up its efforts to have Picasso’s painting, to no avail. He wants to have the canvas to exhibit it between October 1 of this year and June 30, 2027, within the framework of the 90th anniversary of the first Basque Government and the bombing of Gernika. This Friday, in Madrid, the Lehendakari explained: “It would seem to me to be a serious political error to close the door with the conservation report that the Reina Sofía has made public on this issue, and I have commented on it and have transferred it to President Sánchez, who is aware (…). October 7, 2026 marks the 90th anniversary of the first Basque government in history, and April 26, 2027 marks the 90th anniversary of the bombing of Gernika. Therefore, we are requesting a temporary transfer linked to these anniversaries as a way of reparation and historical memory (…) and a symbolic and political reparation, not only to the Basque people, but a message to the world with this transfer of the Guernica”.
Pradales has raised this issue with Sánchez on two occasions, according to a spokesperson for the Basque Ministry of Culture. The President of the Government, always according to these sources, advised the Lehendakari that the request be made formally before the Ministry of Culture.
This happened last Tuesday. The counselor of the branch, Ibone Bengoetxea, put the matter on the table in the meeting she held that day with her counterpart Ernest Urtasun, who asked for time to analyze it. According to Pradales, “the vice president had a meeting with Urtasun to talk about this proposal and explained to him what the objective was, which was that we carry out a possibilistic analysis to find out under what techniques, conditions, technologies and costs the temporary transfer to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao would be possible. We have not requested a report on the conservation of the painting, we know what the state of conservation is, but rather a report that analyzes under what conditions it would be possible to move it and temporarily transfer it to Euskadi. That is the issue that was discussed at that meeting and both reached the agreement to meet again to discuss this issue after Easter.”
Report against
This Thursday, the Reina Sofía released a report on the status of the painting. The condition of the painting “strongly” advises against moving the facilities where it is located due to the “inevitable” vibrations that it would suffer during transportation, which could cause “new cracks, lifting and loss of the pictorial layer, as well as tears,” the aforementioned report states.
The linen and jute fabric canvas (original dimensions of 349.4 by 776.6 centimeters) was analyzed in 1997 after “suffering more than 30 roamings” and as many windings and it was then considered that “the optimal conditions for its conservation had to necessarily be stable, with strict control of climatic fluctuations, avoiding all types of vibrations.” “The work cannot be rolled up due to the current nature of the elements that compose it and must remain in a vertical position at all times and in stable humidity and temperature conditions,” it was concluded then.
In the latest report made public by the Reina Sofía, the same conclusion is reached, in other words: “The work is currently maintained in stable conditions thanks to rigorous control of the environmental conditions. However, in view of a possible transfer, its format, nature of the elements that compose it and state of conservation, together with the numerous damages suffered over time, make it especially sensitive to all types of vibrations that are inevitable in transporting works of art. These vibrations could generate new cracks, lifting and losses of the pictorial layer, as well as tears in the support, so its transfer is strongly discouraged,” concludes the Conservation-Restoration Department of the Reina Sofía museum.
The museum maintains that removing it from its facilities would entail “a high risk for the work.” The Basque Government considers that an exception could be made due to the special symbolism that the exhibition of the painting in the Basque Country would have. The Basque authorities are willing to create a working commission to coordinate the eventual transfer and are willing to assume the cost of the operation of taking it to the Guggenheim “with full guarantees of safety and conservation.”