Los niños - The Guernica connection with Southampton

The artist Pete Codling is working with  Cantell Secondary School and National Portrait Gallery London for a major exhibition at Southampton City Gallery May-Oct 2023. The school pupils will be exhibiting their own drawings alongside selected portraits from the national and local collections.

Codling will create a large drawing reflecting on this City of Sanctuary with reference to the children evacuated here in the Spanish civil war 1937 and contemporary migration from conflict and poverty. His inspiration starts with Pablo Picasso's iconic Guernica painting from 1937 that he created in response to the namesake town that was blitzed by the facists. 2023 is the 50th anniversary the artist's death and being celebrated by galleries and museums across the globe. The 3880 refugee children were put in canvas tents in Stoneham Eastleigh before dispersal around the country. They are remembered by the Basque37 Association, who also celebrate their 87th anniversary of arrival this year.