The Dream and Lie of Franco (Plate I)

<p>This set of etchings (see also 1948.48.2) satirizes the murderous rule of General Francisco Franco (1892–1975) with images of violence, showing its protagonist as a monstrous beast. The figure of a weeping woman is visible in the middle-left quadrant of the sheet at right. Each of the 18 vignettes was reproduced on separate postcards, whose sale was intended to raise funds to support Spain’s anti-Fascist government. Some of the images relate to Picasso’s mural Guernica, which depicted the horrors endured by the inhabitants of a small Spanish town that was bombed by Franco’s Fascist forces in 1937.</p>