Ron English - Guernica 2024 - Set of two

Contemporary American artist Ron English merges brand imagery, motifs from popular culture, cartoon characters and art historical references in a unique style which he has coined ‘Popaganda’. Having previously riffed on works by Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Leonardo da Vinci, he has recently reframed Picasso’s most famous masterpiece, ‘Guernica’.

Where Picasso’s mural is a powerful piece of propaganda, Ron English has painted witty, ‘popaganda’-styled interpretations of ‘Guernica’ which carry his own statements about today’s culture and divided societies as we advance towards new technologies. Inserting his own irreverent imagery, characters and visual references into Picasso’s template, English’ highly-imaginative phantasmagorical tableaux assume iconic status, while asserting the artist’s own position as a great contemporary master.

It was in 1937 that Picasso painted ‘Guernica’ as a powerful piece of propaganda, protesting the horrific bombing of the Basque town by Fascist forces during the Spanish Civil War. Having seen Picasso’s epic, anti-war mural in person and taking this art historical icon as his template, English decided that he wanted to do “100 versions of it in every way that I could think of.”.

English has self-consciously kept some of the most symbolic imagery from Picasso’s mural, paying tribute to his predecessor. With the adaptations, he has paid tribute to the billboard-like scale and composition of the original, resonating deeply with his own earlier work. Having started his career as a street artist in the late 1970s, English hijacked billboards across America, radically altering big brands’ original messaging by inserting new text, images and cartoon characters in a provocative and early form of ‘culture jamming’. While Picasso was protesting war, English says that he “wanted to talk about social class in America, which is never even acknowledged”.

In his subversive reimagining of Picasso’s epic anti-war mural, English pays tribute to the high drama, dynamic composition and atmospheric palette of the original, replacing Picasso’s cast of tragic characters with his own - whilst in ‘Punk Skunk Guernica’ with imagined creatures from his very own invented world, Delusionville; it is the recognisable cast from George Lucas’ epic space story who appear in the ‘Star Wars Guernica’ frame: Darth Vader, R2-D2 and Yoda are caught in dramatic battle, echoing Picasso’s action-packed composition.

The set includes:

Punk Skunk Guernica

Star Wars Guernica

Both artworks are Mixed Media Limited-Edition on Canvas hand-signed by Ron English. You can now visualise the artwork in your space by using the AR feature available in each individual product. Simply click on your favourite piece and select “View in Room”.

Find out more about this collection here or alternatively shop more Ron English artwork here.