View source for The Dream and Lie of Franco

{{Short description|Prints by Pablo Picasso}}
{{italic title}}
{{Infobox artwork
| image_file         = The dream and lie of franco.jpg
| painting_alignment = 
| image_size         = 300px
| caption            = The second sheet of the artwork
| title              = ''The Dream and Lie of Franco''
| alt                = 
| other_language_1   = Spanish
| other_title_1      = Sueño y mentira de Franco
| other_language_2   =
| other_title_2      = 
| artist             = [[Pablo Picasso]]
| year               = 1937
| type               = Etching and aquatint
| height_metric             = 
| width_metric              = 
| length_metric             = 
| height_imperial        = 12 7/16
| width_imperial         = 16 1/2
| length_imperial        = 
| diameter__metric        = 
| diameter_imperial      = 
| imperial_unit = in
| metric_unit = cm
| city               = 
| museum             = 
| coordinates        = 
| owner              = The Metropolitan Museum of Art
| italic title   = no
}}

'''''The Dream and Lie of Franco''''' ({{langx|es|Sueño y mentira de Franco}}) is a series of two sheets of prints, comprising 18 individual images, and an accompanying [[prose poem]], by [[Pablo Picasso]] produced in 1937. The sheets each contain nine images arranged in a 3x3 grid. The first 14, in [[etching]] and [[aquatint]], are dated  8 January 1937. The remaining four images were added to the second [[printing plate]] later, without use of aquatint, and dated June 7, 1937.<ref name="met">[[The Metropolitan Museum of Art]]: [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1986.1224.1%5B2%5D Dream and Lie of Franco, 1937]</ref><ref name=NGV>[[National Gallery of Victoria]]: [http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/picasso/education/ed_JTE_ITG.html An Introduction to Guernica]</ref><ref name=pbs>[[Public Broadcasting Service|PBS]]: [https://www.pbs.org/treasuresoftheworld/a_nav/guernica_nav/gnav_level_1/1bcause_guerfrm.html Picasso's commitment to the cause]</ref>

''The Dream and Lie of Franco'' is significant as Picasso's first overtly [[The arts and politics|political work]] and prefigures his iconic political painting ''[[Guernica (painting)|Guernica]]''. The etchings [[satire|satirise]] Spanish [[Generalísimo]] [[Francisco Franco]]'s claim to represent and defend conservative Spanish culture and values by showing him in various ridiculous guises, while  destroying Spain and its culture. The poem denounces "evil-omened polyps".<ref>Michigan Today: [http://www.umich.edu/~newsinfo/MT/02/Sum02/mt13j02.html Picasso's War]</ref> Three of the four images added in June 1937 are directly related to studies for ''Guernica''.<ref name="met"/>

The individual images were originally intended to be published as [[postcard]]s to raise funds for the [[Second Spanish Republic|Spanish Republican government]], and sold at the Spanish Pavilion of the [[Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (1937)|1937 World's Fair]], although it is unclear whether any prints were made or sold in postcard format.{{Clarify|date=February 2009}}

In his review of the etchings for ''[[The Spectator]]'' in October 1937, art historian (and member of the [[Cambridge Five]] spy-ring) [[Anthony Blunt]] complained that the work could not "reach more than the limited coterie of [[Aestheticism|aesthetes]]".<ref>{{cite book |last=Steiner |first=George |title=George Steiner: a reader| chapter=The Cleric of Treason|page=179 | year=1987 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0195050681}}</ref> Critic and author John Golding on the other hand, claimed that "more than any other work by Picasso ''Dream and Lie of Franco'' breaks down, as the [[Surrealists]] so passionately longed to, distinctions between thought, writing and visual imagery."<ref name="Golding 1994 244">{{cite book|first=John |last=Golding| title=Visions Of the Modern|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_d5wXeMFxA2IC | year=1994 |page=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_d5wXeMFxA2IC/page/n241 244]|publisher=University of California Press | isbn=0520087925}}</ref>

==Images==
The images form a sequence like those in a [[comic book]] (in particular, the Spanish [[Auca (cartoon)|auca]]) and have a loose narrative:<ref name="met"/><ref name=NGV/>
Franco's form changes from panel to panel. The Spanish dictator's appearance has been likened by various writers to a "[[jackboot]]ed [[phallus]]",<ref>{{cite book |last=O'Brian |first=Patrick |title=Picasso: A Biography | year=2012 |page=318|publisher=HarperCollins Publishers |isbn=978-0007466382}}</ref> "an evil-omened [[Polyp (medicine)|polyp]]"<ref name="Golding 1994 244"/> and "a grotesque [[homunculus]] with a head like a gesticulating and tuberous [[sweet potato]]".<ref>{{cite book |last=van Hensbergen |first=Gijs |title=Guernica: The Biography of a Twentieth-Century Icon | page=28 | year=2013 |publisher=A&C Black |isbn=978-1408841488}} Quote by Joaquín de la Puente</ref>

# Franco riding a horse waving a sword and a flag
# Franco, with a ridiculously large penis, waving a sword and a flag
# Franco attacking a [[classical sculpture]] with a pick
# Franco dressed as a [[courtesan]] with a flower and a fan
# Franco being gored by a bull
# Franco at prayer surrounded by barbed wire
# Franco on top of a dead creature{{clarify|date=July 2012}}
# Franco chasing a winged horse
# Franco riding on a pig carrying a spear
# Franco eating a dead horse
# The aftermath of a battle with a corpse
# The aftermath of a battle with a dead horse
# Franco and a bull
# Franco and the bull fighting

Additions to the second plate (including studies for ''Guernica''):
# A woman crying and reaching up
# A woman fleeing a burning house carrying a child
# A woman cradling a child
# A woman shot with an arrow and reaching up amid devastation

==Prose==
{{Further|Picasso's poetry#Dream and Lie of Franco}}

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

==Selected bibliography==
* {{cite journal |last=Schuldiner |first=Michael |title=Narrative Markers in Pablo Picasso's Tragicomic Strip, The Dream and Lie of Franco |journal=European Comic Art |volume=9 |issue=3 |date=Autumn 2016 |pages=6–26 |doi=10.3167/eca.2016.090202 }}

==External links==
* [https://www.lambiek.net/artists/p/picasso_pablo.htm Lambiek Comiclopedia article about Pablo Picasso, which also discusses ''The Dream and Lie of Franco''.]

{{Pablo Picasso |state=collapsed }}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dream and Lie of Franco}}
[[Category:Etchings by Pablo Picasso]]
[[Category:Basque history]]
[[Category:Spanish Civil War in popular culture]]
[[Category:War art]]
[[Category:1937 works]]
[[Category:20th-century etchings]]
[[Category:Political art]]
[[Category:Horses in art]]
[[Category:Cattle in art]]
[[Category:Bullfighting in art]]
[[Category:Anti-Francoism]]
[[Category:Anti-fascist works]]
[[Category:Anti-war works]]
[[Category:Anti-war comics]]
[[Category:1937 in comics]]
[[Category:Comics set in Spain]]
[[Category:Comics set in the 1930s]]
[[Category:Counterculture of the 1930s]]
[[Category:Satirical comics]]
[[Category:Political satire comics]]
[[Category:Cultural depictions of Francisco Franco]]
[[Category:Works about Falangism]]
[[Category:Poetry by Pablo Picasso]]
[[Category:Spanish political satire]]