The Dream and Lie of Franco, I, II

This print is a scathing criticism of General Francisco Franco, who led the fight against Republican forces during the Spanish Civil War. Picasso originally intended to sell each image on these sheets separately, with all funds going to support the Republican cause. In part I, Franco is the grotesque monster hacking away at art and culture. The images in part II ref lect Picasso’s outrage at Franco’s Nazi-supported bombing of Guernica, a city in northern Spain, on April 26, 1937. These scenes of human anguish were immortalized the same year in his masterful painting, Guernica.