By Martin Shaw:
Pablo Picasso’s ‘Massacre in Korea‘ (1951; in the Musée Picasso, Paris), … is based on a massacre of Korean civilians by US forces at No Gun Ri from 26-29 July 1950, which has remained controversial to this day. Korean survivors claim that they were bombed by the US airforce on 26 July, and subsequently fired on by US soldiers in a tunnel into which large numbers had fled, leading to over 300 deaths.Discussion about Picasso, politics, and art: here.Half a century later, after an indefatigable campaign by Korean survivors, in 1999 Associated Press reporters found US veterans who confirmed the massacre story. The US Army was finally forced to confront the allegations and established an official investigation into the episode, whose Report of the No Gun Ri Review was published in January 2001. …
Picasso’s painting was doubly controversial in its time. It not only endorsed claims of massacre that were denied by the US. It was also criticised within the French Communist Party (PCF), of which Picasso was a member, for not conforming to a socialist realist style. The painting has never achieved the iconic status of the earlier Guernica (1937), but it has remained one of Picasso’s most explicitly political works, a point of reference in various situations.
Another massacre in Korea: here.
I love this painting of picasso;thanks for your article of Korean story!Picasso paints this drama inspired by Francisco de Goya’s paintings:2MAY and 3MAY 1808(painted in 1812!)
Comment by PHIL TWINSART — May 12, 2008 @ 7:11 pm
Thanks for your comment Phil. There is also info about Goya on this blog if you use Goya as a search word.
Comment by Administrator — May 12, 2008 @ 10:34 pm