Exhibition Highlights

History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, but It Does Rhyme: Dumile Feni’s African Guernica

Welcome to a new series at the Museo Reina Sofía that brings Pablo Picasso’s legendary Guernica (1937) into a fresh conversation with other powerful artworks. This programme, explores the fascinating links between Picasso’s masterpiece and works from different cultures and eras that share similar styles and stories.

One of these works is Dumile Feni’s African Guernica, created in the 1960s. Feni’s piece draws clear inspiration from Picasso, using bold charcoal lines and dramatic lighting to capture deep emotion. By simplifying shapes and blending human and animal figures, Feni creates a powerful, moving scene. Much like the original Guernica, the massive scale of Feni’s work is meant to stop you in your tracks, serving as a timeless reminder of the struggles against violence, discrimination, and oppression everywhere.

Zwelidumile Geelboi Mgxaji Mhlaba "Dumile" Feni (1942 – 1991) was a South African contemporary visual artist known for both his drawings and paintings that included sculptural elements, as well as for his sculptures, which often depicted the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa.

Feni lived in exile and extreme poverty for most of his art career.