The Dream and Lie of Franco (Sueño y mentira de Franco)

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The Dream and Lie of Franco (Sueño y mentira de Franco)

Artist Pablo Picasso (Spanish (active France), 1881-1973)

Publisher [Pablo Picasso, Paris, 1937]

Author Pablo Picasso (Spanish (active France), 1881-1973)

Date[1937]

DimensionsPortfolio: H: 23 1/4 in. (590 mm); W: 15 3/4 in. (400 mm).
Leaf: H: 22 3/4 in. (578 mm); W: 15 in. (381 mm).
Image: H: 12 5/16 in. (312 mm); W: 22 1/2 in. (572 mm).

MediumOriginal prints: 2 etchings with aquatint on Chine collé on imperial japan. Text: line block reproduction of handwritten original; letterpress. Paper: buff imperial japan paper.

ClassificationPrints

Credit LineGift of Molly and Walter Bareiss in honor of Barbara K. Sutherland

Object number

1984.884B

Not on View

Label TextThe smiling and mustachioed monster, described by Picasso in his accompanying prose-poem as an "evil-omened polyp scouring brush of hairs from priests' tonsures … his mouth full of the cinch-bug jelly of his words," is a derisive caricature of General Franco. Wearing a crown, he rides a horse, a pig, and a colossal phallus in his assault on the people and civilization of Spain. In the final four frames, made on June 7 following the destruction of the town of Guernica by Nazi bombers on Franco's behalf, satire is supplanted by suffering. Civil war devastated Spain for three years from 1936 to 1939. Ignited by a right-wing military insurrection led by General Francisco Franco against the elected Republican government, the revolt claimed to rescue Spain from atheistic socialism and restore the values and traditions of "eternal Spain." To protest the atrocities and rally support for the Republican cause, Picasso executed these two plates of etchings in comic-strip form on January 8-9, 1937. The portfolio was sold to raise funds for Republican refugees. "Dream and Lies of Franco" was one of the strongest artistic protests to the reports of Spanish Civil War atrocities. Each etching is divided into 9 compartments with depictions of a grotesque polyp-headed tyrant who wreaked destruction on all in his path. Both etchings were begun on January 8 and 9, 1937, before the bombing of Guernica in April, but they were completed afterwards. Picasso's surrealist poem is reprinted in the facsimile of his handwriting in both Spanish and French. The proceeds from the sale of this portfolio went to aid the Spanish Republicans.Published Referencescf. Goeppert, Sebastian, et al., Pablo Picasso: The Illustrated Books: Catalogue raisonné, Geneva, 1983, no. 28

cf. Garvey, Eleanor M., The Artist & the Book, 1860--1960, Boston, 1961, no. 228

cf. Castleman, Riva, A Century of Artists Books, New York, 1994, pp. 126-127, reprs.

cf. Hogben, Carol, Rowan Watson, editors, From Manet to Hockney: Modern Artists’ Illustrated Books, London, 1985, no. 106, reprs.

cf. The Frank Crowninshield Collection of Modern French Illustrated Books, New York: Parke-Bernet Galleries, 1943, no. 612, 613

cf. Johnson, Robert Flynn, Artists' Books in the Modern Era 1870--2000: the Reva and David Logan Collection of Illustrated Books, San Francisco, 2001, no. 63.

Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art, Picasso as an Illustrator, 1988, no. 11

Toledo Museum of Art, The Bareiss Collection of Illustrated Books from Toulouse-Lautrec to Kiefer, 1985, no. 59

Toledo Musuem of Art, Disasters of War, 2001

Toledo Museum of Art, Satire Show, March 17 - June 25 2006

Toledo Museum of Art, Between the Wars, Sept. 5-Dec.31 2008

Toledo Museum of Art, What’s Wrong with Me? Art and Disease, April 22-August 7, 2011 (UT Student exhibition).