June 4, 1937: Pablo Picasso's "Guernica" Is Completed

This is not an illusion: Picasso purposely painted it without color.

June 4, 1937: Pablo Picasso completes his painting Guernica. It becomes a symbol of the Spanish Civil War.

On April 14, 1931, the Spanish monarchy was overthrown by the Second Spanish Republic, a left-of-center government. On February 16, 1936, Spain's national election was won by the Popular Front, a coalition that included Socialists and Communists -- which, as non-ignorant people know, are not the same thing, and usually don't work together. This time, they did.

And that infuriated a lot of people in Spain, which had traditionally been a very culturally conservative country, dominated by the Roman Catholic Church. On July 17, 1936, the Army of Africa launched a coup d'état in the Spanish-controlled part of Morocco. This coup was soon supported by units all over Spain, but not in the major cities such as the capital, Madrid, or in Barcelona or Valencia.

The coup supporters, the traitors, called themselves the Nationalists, and received support from the fascist governments of Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany and Benito Mussolini in Italy. António Salazar, the fascist dictator of neighboring Portugal, stayed out of it.

The Republicans got aid from the Soviet Union, a Communist nation, and Mexico, which then had a leftward government, if not an outright Communist one. The fact that the Soviets were aiding the Republicans caused the United States, Britain and France to continue to recognize the Republican government of Spain, but also to refuse to intervene in the war.

Some people from those countries went to Spain, and enlisted in what became known as the International Brigades. An American group named themselves the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Many liberals defied their own governments to support the Republicans, including American authors Ernest Hemingway and Lillian Hellman, British writer George Orwell, and French writer-philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. Hemingway would write a novel about the war, For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Hitler and Mussolini really, really wanted to win this war, to send a message to Communists all over the world. Hitler sent his air force, the Luftwaffe, to bomb Republican strongholds. And Mussolini sent troops to aid the Nationalist commander, Generalissimo Francisco Franco. This became known as "Franco's Italian Army."

The Basque Country, in northernmost Spain, suffered tremendously. The Luftwaffe bombed the town of Guernica on April 26, 1937, inspiring the most famous work of Málaga native Pablo Picasso. As Time magazine editor Walter Isaacson wrote, as part of an article that tried to sum up the 20th Century, "We bombed Guernica, and we painted the bombing of Guernica."

Madrid and Barcelona, the country's 2 largest cities, suffered the most. Once Barcelona fell on January 26, 1939, and was cut off from the capital, the Republican cause was doomed. Franco entered Madrid on April 1, and proclaimed victory.

Franco was not magnanimous in victory: He acted like a genuine fascist, coming down especially hard on Barcelona, and its region, Catalonia, the region that had opposed him the hardest. The governments of Britain and France recognized Franco's government.

Picasso died on April 8, 1973, at the age of 91. This man, as much of an egotist as Franco, delivered these last words to those gathered at his deathbed: "Drink to me!" I once saw someone online remark that Picasso seemed like a character from an earlier age, and yet he lived on Earth, for nearly 6 months, at the same time as Marshall Mathers, a.k.a. Eminem.

Franco followed Picasso into death on November 20, 1975. Fascism died in Spain soon after.

The original painting of Guernica is now in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Queen Sofia National Central Art Museum) in Madrid.

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June 4, 1937 was a Friday. Mortimer B. Zuckerman, longtime owner of the New York Daily News and publisher of the magazine U.S. News & World Report, was born.

These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Cleveland Indians, 5-3 at League Park in Cleveland. Former Yankee Johnny Allen outpitched Spurgeon "Spud" Chandler. Lou Gehrig went 3-for-3 with a walk, and Joe DiMaggio went 2-for-4.

* The New York Giants split a doubleheader with the Chicago Cubs at the Polo Grounds. The Cubs won the 1st game, 6-5. Billy Herman singled home the winning run in the top of the 11th inning. Carl Hubbell started the game, but was betrayed by the bullpen. The Giants won the 2nd game, 4-2. Mel Ott went 3-for-9 with 2 RBIs over the 2 games.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the St. Louis Cardinals, 14-4 at Ebbets Field.

* The Boston Bees beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 9-1 at National League Park in Boston. This was during the 1936-40 period when they had cast aside the names "Boston Braves" and "Braves Field," before resuming them.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 9-8 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Washington Senators, 10-3 at Navin Field in Detroit. (The ballpark was renamed Briggs Stadium the next season, and Tiger Stadium in 1961.) Hank Greenberg went 2-for-4 with a solo home run.

* A doubleheader was split at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis, with both games going 10 innings. The St. Louis Browns won the opener, 7-6. Ben Huffman singled home the winning run. The Philadelphia Athletics won the nightcap, 4-3. Bob Johnson won it by drawing a bases-loaded walk.

* And the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago White Sox got rained out at Comiskey Park in Chicago. It was rained up as part of a doubleheader on September 2. The White Sox swept, 4-2 and 10-8.