Letters to David Irving on this Website


Unless correspondents ask us not to, this Website will post selected letters that it receives and invite open debate.


Quick navigation

Luigi Capano writes from Naples, Italy, on October 27, 1999


typewriter

I'M studying the Spanish civil war and particularly Guernica's bombardment. I would ask you a question about Picasso's masterpiece "Guernica". Some studies says it had originally another title: "El muerte del torero Joselito" [the death of the bullfighter Joselito]. But I have found no evidence. Could you prove that "Guernica" is really an older painting dedicated to Joselito's death ? Excuse for my awful English and best regards.

Luigi Capano

Guernica

 David Irving replies:

 I have seen the original notebooks in which Picasso sketched the outlines of the famous painting which became the Guernica painting. The sketches are drawn before the April 1937 bombardment of Guernica, in which 93 people (yes, 93) died; and the sketches were of a bullfight. But I do not recall having seen the title you describe. So the answer is a "half-Yes."

[Incidentally, go to: http://web.org.uk/picasso/secret_guernica-f.html]

© Focal Point 1999 David Irving