The Guernica Tapestry returns to United Nations Headquarters

The reproduction of art's most powerful cry against the horror of war is back at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

The Rockefeller family has decided to exhibit again at the entrance to the Security Council its vast tapestry representing Pablo Picasso's

, a year after his sudden disappearance which had caused great emotion at the UN, learned on Saturday the AFP from UN sources.

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"The Guernica

" said Nelson Rockefeller Jr, quoted in the UN press release.

,” he added.

"

," reacted a diplomat, summing up the relief of many of his colleagues, officials or journalists working at the UN in New York.

According to several witnesses, the re-hanging of the tapestry was on track Saturday morning at the Organization's headquarters.

In February 2021, in the midst of an acute Covid-19 crisis and while the UN campus was deserted of its thousands of employees ordered to telework, the vast fresco had disappeared from the entrance to the Security Council.

No explanation on this subject was provided by the Rockefeller family, owner of the work, which had loaned it to the UN for more than three decades.

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"It's horrible, horrible,"

reacted UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, taken by surprise at this decision, promising to do everything to bring the work back.

Asked by AFP, the new American ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, had however then indicated that she would not make any specific approach to the owner.

In an interview with the

published on Saturday, Nelson Rockefeller Junior acknowledged a

for a work that apparently needed cleaning.

The tapestry is returned to the UN with the option for the family to temporarily take it back for exhibitions in the United States and around the world.

The cry of art against war

One of Pablo Picasso's best-known works,

depicts the bombardment of the eponymous city on April 26, 1937, by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy during the Civil War between Franco's nationalists. against the Republicans.

The original, a monumental oil on canvas, has been kept for almost thirty years at the Prado.

Commissioned in 1955 by Nelson Rockefeller, the tapestry exhibited at the UN was woven by the workshop of Jacqueline de La Baume-Dürrbach.

Only two other copies of this tapestry have come out of the French workshop and are now kept at the Museum of Modern Art in Gunma, Japan, as well as at the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar.

The latter had been lent last year to the Rodin Museum as part of the

.

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The presence of the tapestry at the headquarters of the United Nations, in front of which presidents, ministers and other ambassadors going to the Security Council regularly pass, aims to make them aware of the tragedy of war.

," said a while ago. a year the spokesperson for the UN, Stéphane Dujarric.

Asked Thursday about the rumors of an imminent return of the work, his deputy, Farhan Haq, underlined that, for the head of the UN, the exhibition of this tapestry is accompanied by "

".

"

," he added.

In New York, in one building at least, peace still prevails.