Source: Iberia
- After more than four decades exhibited at the MoMA museum, the canvas traveled from the John F. Kennedy International Airport to the Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas on the regular Iberia flight 0952.
- The flight took off on September 9 and landed at 8:27 a.m. the following day, without the 319 passengers or part of the 19 crew members knowing about the valuable merchandise that accompanied them in the hold.
- The Picasso -of 7.77m by 3.49m- flew rolled up and packed in a huge wooden box in the hold of the “Jumbo” Lope de Vega (EC-DLD), a Boeing 747 airplane model -with capacity for 404 passengers – with which the airline covered its long-haul routes.
Today marks the 40th anniversary of the arrival in Spain from New York of one of the most emblematic pictorial works in the history of art, Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica”. The canvas was commissioned by the Government of Spain from the Malaga artist for the Spanish Pavilion at the International Exhibition in Paris in 1937.
After more than four decades exhibited at the MoMA museum in New York -at the express wish of the artist-, on September 9, 1981 the canvas traveled from the John F. Kennedy International Airport to Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas, on the regular flight of Iberia 0952.
The flight landed at 8:27 a.m. on the 10th, without the 319 passengers or part of the 19 crew members knowing about the valuable merchandise that accompanied them in the hold. Once on the ground, the plane’s commander, Juan López Durán, informed the passengers over the public address system with the following message: “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Madrid. I have to tell you that you have been accompanying Picasso’s Guernica on its return to Spain ”.
Picasso’s work – 7.77 m by 3.49 m – flew rolled up and packed in a huge wooden box in the hold of the “Jumbo” Lope de Vega (EC-DLD), a Boeing 747 aircraft model with capacity for 404 passengers, with which the airline covered its long-haul routes until 2006, when it was retired.
The Casón del Buen Retiro – linked to the Prado Museum – was the first destination of the painting and where it remained until 1992, the year in which it was transferred to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in the Spanish capital, where it remains to this day.