Name: PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973)
Brand: Sueño y mentira de Franco ('Dreams and Lies of Franco')
Price: 5000.00 GBP
Availability: OutOfStock

PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973)
Sueño y mentira de Franco ('Dreams and Lies of Franco')
the complete portfolio comprising two etchings with aquatint
1937
on Montval laid paper
with the stamped signature
each print numbered in pencil 774/ 850 (there were also 150 copies on Chine collé and thirty artist's proofs numbered with Roman numerals)
printed by Lacourière, Paris, and published by the artist
the full sheets, with deckle edges
with the poem by Picasso in facsimile of his manuscript, and in letterpress text in Spanish and French on a folded sheet of laid paper, the text in English inserted on a smaller, loose sheet of wove paper
the text pages and prints within a cream wove paper folder
all within the original blue paper wrapper, with the artist's name and title in facsimile manuscript pasted on the front
in good condition
Plates 31,7 x 42,2 cm. (12¹⁄₂ x 16⁵⁄₈ in.)
Sheets 38,5 x 56,7 cm. (15¹⁄₈ x 22¹⁄₂ in.) (and similar)

The Collection of Dr Robert Schnell, Klipstein & Kornfeld, Bern, 24 May 1962, lot 164.
Acquired at the above sale; then by descent to the present owners.

G. Bloch, Picasso - Catalogue de l'oeuvre gravé et lithographe 1904-1967, Bern, 1968, vol I, nos. 297 & 298, p. 91 (other impressions ill.).
P. Cramer (ed.), Pablo Picasso - The Illustrated Books: Catalogue raisonné, Geneva, 1983, no. 28, pp. 82-83 (other impressions ill.).
B. Baer & B. Geiser, Picasso - Peintre - Graveur, Bern, 1990, nos. 615 II.B.e. & 616 V.B.e., pp. 106-107 (other impressions ill.).

Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Picasso - Der blinde Minotaurus - Die Sammlung Hegewisch in der Hamburger Kunsthalle, February 1997, pp. 54-55 (ill.) & p. 85-86.
Oslo, Munch-Museet, Pablo Picasso - Den blinde Minotaurus - grafikk og tegning, November 2002 - February 2003 (no cat.).
Hamburg, Ernst Barlach Haus - Stiftung Hermann F. Reemtsma, Pablo Picasso - Der Stier und das Mädchen - Meisterblätter aus der Sammlung Hegewisch, June - October 2010, no. 29.1-29.2 (ill.), p. 114.

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Lot Essay

To protest against Franco's military coup in 1936 which sparked the Spanish civil war, Picasso had originally planned to produce a set of postcards intended for a large distribution amongst the population, mocking the fascist general in a series of caricatures reminiscent of a comic strip. On the first plate, the images depict Franco as a misshapen homunculus who fancies himself as a heroic caballero but rides a giant penis, a dying horse and a pig, and prays to a monstrance of money. In one image he appears in drag, with a veil, skirt and a fan, adorned with his armorial beast, a flea. Picasso then completed three more images in this grotesque style, before he changed tack. Following the murderous air raid on the town of Guernica on 26 April 1937, he decided not to cut up the plates into individual images but to complete the second plate in a different, equally sketch-like but more dramatic and serious manner. These final images are accusations of the killing of civilians by the German and Italian air forces at the request of Franco, and depict the suffering and death especially of women and children. The wailing woman with her hand raised in grief and despair (plate II, at centre left) is the first iteration of this figure, to which Picasso returned three months later to create, much enlarged, one of his unforgettable masterpieces: La Femme qui pleure I (Bloch 1333, Baer 623).
The two prints were published by the artist in a large total edition of one thousand impressions accompanied by the text of his own surrealist poem which gives the portfolio its title. From the proceeds of this publication Picasso created a fund to support the Republican cause.