Covering up Picasso's Guernica. Colin Powell and Rahm Emanuel.

The truth of the art and the art of the lie.

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As we were leaving Madrid’s Museo Reina Sofia an American woman with two little children in tow came up to us.

"Are there any famous paintings in here?” she asked.

I felt as if I were in the middle of a New Yorker cartoon.

“This is a museum of modern Spanish painters,” I explained. “It has what is arguably the greatest painting of the 20th century, The Guernica by Pablo Picasso.”

“No,” she she said. “I mean like Rembrandt.”

Again I repeated that it was a museum of mainly 20th century Spanish artists.

She humphed, grabbed her kids and walked out.

It is a weird segue, I suppose, from that story to thinking about the death of Colin Powell last week.

When I heard that the old general, already ill from a number of causes, was finally struck down by Covid, all I could think about were the images of him speaking before the United Nations and knowingly lie about Iraq.

It was the prelude to another horrible and unnecessary war.

On 5, February 2003, Colin Powell was Secretary of State. He came out of the UN session for a press conference after with full self-awareness presenting phony evidence to get the UN to decide to endorse an invasion of Iraq.

Journalists noticed that the tapestry hanging behind his back had been covered by a blue curtain.

The tapestry was a copy of Picasso’s Guernica, the painting that hangs in Madrid’s Museo Reina Sofia.

Picasso painted his masterpiece following the bombing of the Spanish town of Guernica by planes under the command of the fascist general, Francisco Franco.

It was the first time civilian populations had been bombed from the air.

The American woman who was looking for Rembrandt in a museum of modern Spanish paintings and The Guernica was simply ignorant.

Powell was a liar who didn’t want the world to see The Guernica because it graphically showed the horror of what Powell was promoting.

I had another thought when I heard the news about the death of Colin Powell.

At the same time as Powell was taking his final breath, our ex-mayor, Rahm Emanuel, was testifying before the Senate.

He is likely to be the next U.S. ambassador to Japan.

His nomination by President Biden was met by outrage from those of us who know Rahm and the role he played in the cover-up of the police murder of Laquan McDonald.

In his testimony before the Senate Rahm lied about the central part he played in the year-long suppression of the video that showed officer Jason Van Dyke putting sixteen bullets into the dying body of Laquan McDonald.

The second bullet had already killed him.

Rahm was forced to withdraw from his campaign for a third term.

Jason Van Dyke was convicted and is in prison.

In my mind, I imagined a blue shroud behind Rahm at the Senate hearing.

Behind it, hidden from view was an imaginary painting by Picasso that showed the horrors of our history of racism and police brutality.

The shroud was covering the truth of my imaginary painting as another politician lied.