She is called the Weeping Woman, but that is an understatement. She grinds her teeth on a handkerchief that’s like a jagged white-and-blue spearhead while her fingers claw at her face, tearing the flesh to expose her skull. Her chin is two grenades, her eyes are filled with horror – black silhouettes of planes are held in her transfixed eyeballs. They are the German bombers that attacked the Basque town Guernica on 26 April 1937.
Picasso’s Weeping Woman was bought from him by the British surrealist Roland Penrose in November 1937, fresh off the easel. Fifty years later, his son gave it in lieu of tax to the Tate Gallery. Now it is about to star in a Tate Modern exhibition that showcases the museum’s Picasso collection, enhanced with terrific loans from the Musée Picasso in Paris.
