The Weeping Woman (French: La Femme qui pleure) is a series of oil on canvas paintings by Pablo Picasso, the last of which was created in late 1937. The paintings depict Dora Maar, Picasso's mistress and muse. The Weeping Woman paintings were produced by Picasso in response to the bombing of Guernica in the Spanish Civil War and are closely associated with the iconography in his painting Guernica. Picasso was intrigued with the subject of the weeping woman, and revisited the theme numerous times that year. The last version, created on 26 October 1937, was the most elaborate of the series, and has been housed in the collection of the Tate Modern in London since 1987. Another Weeping Woman painting is housed at the National Gallery of Victoria and was involved in a high-profile political art theft. Background Picasso created The Weeping Woman during the Spanish Civil War, which broke out in July 1936, when General Franco revolted against the Republican government. It was part of a series of works in response to the bombing of Guernica in the Spanish Civil War on 26 April 1937. The bombing took place when Adolf Hitler ordered the German airforce to bomb the Basque town on behalf of Franco. The painting was a personal protest after seeing newspaper photographs of the event. In January 1937, Picasso had been asked to produce a mural for the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Exhibition. While he was working on the commission, the bombing of Guernica occurred. Picasso was so shocked by the massacre that he stated in the Springfield Republican on 18 July 1937, "In the panel on which I am working, which I shall call Guernica, and in all my recent works of art, I clearly express my abhorrence of the military caste which has sunk Spain in an ocean of pain and death". The Weeping Woman series has been described as a postscript to Guernica. Picasso's protest against the Franco regime began with his creation of two etchings in January 1937, titled The Dream and Lie of Franco. The work was accompanied by a prose poem, written by Picasso on 8 and 9 January 1937, which features imagery of women weeping and was a precursor to his visual representation of the weeping woman as a symbol for the suffering of Spain under Franco....cries of children cries of women cries of birds cries of