This is the statue in front of the 'centro de arte Reina Sofia', the museum of modern Spanish art in Madrid. Most famous for Picasso's 'Guernica', the painting Picasso was commissioned to do by the republican government of Madrid for the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1937. The painting was quite controversial from the beginning and was seen by many as a work more of propoganda than of art (a condemnation of the horrors of the 1936 civil war, more precise of the german bombing of Gernika (basque country) that year). The museum also has an impressive collection of Miro's and Dali's.