The 1931 Spanish Civil War had a tremendous impact on Picasso and his work. Ideologically, Picasso supported the Republicans (those promoting democracy and new growth). They were opposed by the Nationalists, who represented the interests of the former monarchists, and certain left wing extremists (fascists), in particular, General Franco. On January 8 and 9 of 1937, Picasso created the print series titled Dream and Lie of Franco, I. Two plates were involved, each containing nine rectangular scenes in etching and aquatint. Fourteen of the scenes deal with the expression of hatred and contempt for El Caudillo (Franco). The remaining four images were added on June 7 of that year and depict scenes from Picasso’s painting, Guernica.

The prints read like a traditional woodcut story or like one of the American comic strips Picasso so admired. On the uncut sheets, the images read right to left, resulting from the reversal in the printing process.Originally, the sheets were intended to be sold whole and accompanied by an odd stream of consciousness poem written by Picasso himself. Eschewing any rules of syntax or grammar, the poem was designed to ridicule Franco, the "loathsome, barely human, hairy slug." The idea of distributing the three together was abandoned in favor of cutting the eighteen different images and selling them individually as postcards. The profits would go to support the Spanish Republic and those devastated by Franco. In 1939, sets of the postcard prints and the poem were reunited and reissued.

Image 1 (plate 1: upper right) has Franco riding out to war wearing a crown and carrying a sword as well as a banner. The banner is adorned with the image of the Virgin Mary, a symbol of the monarchy, army and church. Image 2 (plate1: upper center), in parodying Goya’s Disasters of War, "Que se rompe la cuerda", Franco is walking on a tightrope, again carrying the Madonna banner. In this image Picasso puts it at the end of Franco’s enormous penis. Image 3 (plate 1: upper left) shows Franco going to battle against a classical, sculpted bust. This is an allusion either to the works of art destroyed in the Civil War, or to the destruction of either the Spanish Republic or Truth.

In image 4 (plate 1: middle right), El Caudillo is dressed like one of Goya’s Majas, parading around with a fan having the image of the Virgin on it. In image 5 (plate1: middle center) Franco is attacked by a Spanish bull. In image 6 (plate 1: middle left), Franco loses the crown and sword and is sent kneeling before money (the Spanish duoro). The money is protected by barbed wire and in a religious commentary, Picasso has put a bishop’s miter in Franco’s head.

Image 7 (plate 1: lower right) depicts a troubled Franco being saved by a winged horse. This is perhaps a Pegasus allusion. In image 8 (plate 1: lower center), the horse turns into a pig. Image 9 (plate 1: lower left) Franco carries the Virgin banner. In a harsh turn of events, Franco drives a lance through the winged horse, and it is seen dying at his feet in image 10 (plate 2: upper right). The dying horse then gives place to a prostrate woman, image 11 (plate 2: upper center), and then to a white horse whose neck is resting upon the chest of a gypsy, image 12 (plate 2: upper left). The gypsy symbolizes all the people and tradition that have been lost at Franco’s hand.

In image 13 (plate 2: middle right), Franco, in a close-up, is confronted by a bull. In the final scene of this series, image 14 (plate 2: middle center), Franco turns into a centaur-like beast with a horse’s body. He is then ripped open by the bull, and his torn belly spews out the banner, the sword and the flag. At last, Franco, the root-shaped horse, dies. The remaining four images are taken from his May 1937 painting, Guernica. Commenting on the Guernica bombing, Picasso loaded the painting with violent, furious, and horrific symbols of massacre and rape. The inclusion of these in Dream and Lie of Franco, I is an apropos and powerful conclusion to the etchings.

Although these prints were meant to appeal to the masses, the imagery was not really easily comprehensible to them. In many ways, Dream and Lie of Franco, I made the art of Pablo Picasso ever more remote, and ever more unreal.