Guernica: the dialogue between Picasso and Dumile Feni

The show is framed inside History Does Not Repeat Itself, but it Does Rhyme, a new series of interventions in the Museo Reina Sofía Collections which involves juxtaposing an equivalent of Guernica from another time or geopolitical sphere, an endeavour contextualised through academic work rooted in art history as an interpretive framework.

View of exhibition History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, but It Does Rhyme. Dumile Feni: African Guernica in room 205 of Museo Reina Sofía, March, 2026. Photografic archive of Museo Reina Sofía. 

Curated by Tamar Garb, a professor of Art History at University College London, Picasso’s emblematic work is juxtaposed with African Guernica, a work by artist Dumile Feni (Worcester, South Africa, 1942 – New York, 1991), who was a key figure in African modernity.

The Museo Reina Sofía sets in motion a programme of exhibitions which, entitled History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, but it Does Rhyme, seeks to initiate a dialogue with Pablo Picasso’s Guernica (1937) and other major works which reveal parallels in their modes of representation or thematic concerns, despite hailing from different historical and cultural contexts.

The series title refers to a phrase which, although traditionally attributed to the writer Mark Twain, is apocryphal and never actually appears in work by the American author. In this opening show, curated by Tamar Garb, Picasso’s emblematic work is juxtaposed with African Guernica, a work by artist Dumile Feni (Worcester, South Africa, 1942 – New York, 1991), who was a key figure in African modernity.

Alongside Feni’s monumental drawing are five other works by this artist which arrive from major South African institutions, including the University of Fort Hare, the Norval Foundation and the Wits Art Museum, in addition to private collections. Furthermore, they are displayed with four of Picasso’s preparatory drawings from Guernica, works which are part of the Museo Reina Sofía Collections.

Dumile Feni, You Wouldn’t Know God if he Spat in your Eye, 1975, detail. Ink, pencil, crayon, plastic laminate, 26 × 5.300 cm. Wits Art Museo Collection, Johannesburg. ©Estate Dumile Feni and Dumile Feni Family Trust 

As Museo Reina Sofía director, Manuel Segade, explained: “African Guernica represents a significant time in the crisis of modernity, the time of Apartheid in South Africa, one of the limits of the modern project”. Meanwhile, the show’s curator, Tamar Garb, was keen to stress how Dumile Feni “is a modern artist who used drawing materials on an almost unprecedented scale worldwide at that time”. “If we observe drawing practices globally in the 1960s, very few artists worked on such an epic, monumental scale as Dumile in that period”, she added.