Pablo Picasso from the Catalan independence movement during his youth despite expressing general support and being friendly with activists within it. He did not join the armed forces for any side or country during World War I, the Spanish Civil War, and World War II. As a Spanish citizen living in France, Picasso was under no compulsion to fight against the invading Germans in either world war. However, in 1940, he did apply for French citizenship, but it was refused on the grounds of his "extremist ideas evolving towards communism". This information was not revealed until 2003. At the start of the
Guernica (Picasso) allegedly asked him, upon seeing a photo of "Guernica" in his apartment, "Did you do that?" Picasso responded, "No, you did." The photographer Dora Maar—who had worked with Picasso since mid-1936, photographing his studio and teaching him the technique of cameraless photography— documented the stages "Guernica" went through on its way to completion. Apart from their documentary and publicity value, Maar's photographs "helped Picasso to eschew color and give the work the black-and-white immediacy of a photograph", according to John Richardson. The work was painted using a matte house paint specially formulated at Picasso's request to have the least possible