Dove of Peace, 1949 by Pablo Picasso

Dove of Peace, 1949 by Pablo Picasso
Dove of Peace, 1949 by Pablo Picasso

With Guernica hailed as one of the world's most moving anti-war paintings, Picasso was invited to design an image to represent peace.

Picasso's first Dove of Peace, chosen as the emblem for the First International Peace Conference in Paris in 1949, was a traditional, realistic picture of a pigeon which had been given to him by his great friend and rival, the French artist Henri Matisse.

Picasso later developed this image into a simple, graphic line drawing that is one of the world's most recognizable symbols of peace. He also named his fourth child 'Paloma', the Spanish word for 'dove'.