The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 15, 2025

Horizontally-oriented print with three rows of three rectangles, each rectangle depicting scenes of a highly abstracted figure with striped protrusions and a moustache outlined in black and colored in grey. In the different scenes, the figure rides different animals, is mauled by a bull, and switches out hats, though they primarily wear a three-point crown.

Dream and Lie of Franco I: (January 8, 1937)

1937

Pablo Picasso

(Spanish, 1881–1973)
printer

Roger Lacourière

(French, 1892–1966)
Spain, 20th century
etching, sugar-lift aquatint, and chine collé on wove paper
Image: 31 x 41.8 cm (12 3/16 x 16 7/16 in.); Plate: 31.5 x 42.2 cm (12 3/8 x 16 5/8 in.); Sheet: 37.8 x 57 cm (14 7/8 x 22 7/16 in.)
Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland 1973.137.5
© 2006 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Catalogue raisonné: Baer III.106. 615 (Baer addendum p. 38); Bloch 297; Goeppert 28
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

General Francisco Franco is recognizable by his distinctive mustache.

Description

This two-page, viciously satirical response to the Spanish civil war is among the most politically motivated works in Picasso’s career. The prints were sold in a limited edition of 1,000 copies at the Spanish Pavilion of the Paris Universal Exposition to raise money for the Spanish refugee relief campaign. Since the printing process reversed the images, the frames should be read from the upper right to the lower left. Here Picasso portrayed General Francisco Franco as a deformed monster, crusading in a ship, smashing art, disguising himself as a woman, praying, killing, and creating overall havoc and mayhem.
  • Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1973." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 61, no. 2 (February 1974): 31-78. P. 76, #108. www.jstor.org
    Robinson, William H., Jordi Falgàs, Carmen Belen Lord, and Josefina Alix Trueba. Barcelona and Modernity: Picasso, Gaudí, Miró, Dalí. [Cleveland, OH]: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2006. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 458-460, fig. 1, no. 9:28
  • Picasso and Paper. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (co-organizer) (December 8, 2024-March 23, 2025).
    Barcelona & Modernity: Picasso, Gaudí, Miró, Dalí (1868-1939). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 15, 2006-January 7, 2007).
    Cleveland Museum of Art (10/15/2006 - 06/03/2007); The Metropolitan Museum of Art (03/04/2007 - 06/03/2007); "Barcelona & Modernity: Picasso, Gaudí. Miró, Dalí", fig. 1 (cat. 9:28), p. 459, repr. 459- EXHIBITED AT CMA VENUE ONLY.
  • {{cite web|title=Dream and Lie of Franco I: (January 8, 1937)|url=false|author=Pablo Picasso, Roger Lacourière|year=1937|access-date=15 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1973.137.5