The trompe l'oeil revision of Guernica is a Red Grooms painting called Studio at Rue des Grands-Augustins. In front of Guernica, Grooms has added Picasso himself, at work, and figures from his life and art. (The woman in tears at right is Dora Maar, a photographer who was Picasso’s lover during the Guernica period.) Just at Picasso’s left elbow, the back of a Kuba royal male mask is visible, turned so that it watches the painter. In the right foreground of the photograph is a copper and brass Fon lion, also a royal symbol. Partly obscured by the lion’s curved tail is an Igbo headdress, made to fit over the top of a male dancer’s head. Unlike many such headdresses, it is not a stock character: “I have never seen another one like it,” says Fred Lamp. “I think it’s one artist’s creation, for one place. ”

All photos ©Richard Barnes