‘Popaganda’ artist Ron English creates collection reimagining Picasso’s Guernica

Hannah Roberts, PA Entertainment Reporter
Fri, 19 April 2024

American painter Ron English, nicknamed the “godfather of street art”, has created two multi-media artworks reimagining Picasso’s Guernica.

English has inserted his own imagery, characters and visual references into Picasso’s template in two separate parodies, one focused around Star Wars and another called Punk Skunk.

The 64-year-old, whose art explores themes of advertising, pop culture and consumerism in a style branded “popaganda”, has collaborated with art retailer Castle Fine Art who will be selling the collection from upwards of £2,950.

Ron English created Star Wars Guernica (Castle Fine Art/PA)

Guernica is a large black and white oil painting, described as Picasso’s “most important political painting”, depicting the German bombing practice on the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War in 1937.

In Star Wars Guernica, Darth Vader, R2-D2 and Yoda are seen in a battle, echoing Picasso’s action-packed composition.

Meanwhile, Punk Skunk Guernica features toy sculptures that belong to his imagined world of Delusionville, which he describes as being like a “fairytale”.

English said: “I recently conceived of Guernica because, the onset of this parallel career in music.

“And I was kind of intrigued by the fact that in music, or traditionally in music, like in folk music, there was a melody and you would just take somebody else’s melody and then you would add new words to it to be relevant to your time.”

Ron English is behind Punk Skunk Guernica (Castle Fine Art/PA)

He added: “And so the Guernica, I used it the same way, like it’s a melody that I can add new words to – to make it more relevant today.

“And the melody’s familiar and also you have the underlying concept of Guernica – everybody understands that, it’s like a universal.”

English added: “With Guernica, it was pretty easy to come up with the first 10 concepts… it was a little harder with number 11 and even harder with 21 and by the time you’re on 90 it becomes a very big challenge to come up with something you can do.”

He went on: “With the Star Wars piece I was using a piece of popular culture, Star Wars, which for a lot of people of my generation, it’s almost like a biblical thing.”

“It means as much as the Bible did to the generation before us because it’s telling these archetypal stories but in a way that’s modern, not only modern, but also kind of forward thinking.”

Managing director of Castle Fine Art Ian Weatherby-Blythe said: “This project is very close to my heart.

“Our creative director, Glyn Washington, and I hold English’s original artwork within our personal collections, and we have aspired to work with him for over a decade.

“Now we are debuting two incredible Guernica works for the first time, offering collectors worldwide the chance to own one of his incredible pieces.”

The limited edition collection, priced from £2,950, is available worldwide from Castle Fine Art online and in their nationwide UK galleries.