The politics of Pablo Picasso- the self-proclaimed royalist and “apolitical communist”- was rather complicated. He even had a Falangist connection:

This lack of funds played into the hands of the newly created right-wing political organization the Falange and its charismatic leader, José Antonio Primo de Rivera (whose father had endeared himself to Picasso in 1917 by approving of his work). To give the Falange the cultural gloss that Marinetti’s futurists had supplied to Mussolini’s Fascist movement, Rivera—called “El Jefe”—had appointed as his cultural adviser the brilliant, fanatically right-wing Ernesto Giménez Caballero. Formerly editor of the country’s avant-garde La Gaceta Literaria, and a passionate aficionado whose concept of the corrida de toros as a mirror of Spain’s inherent theatricality rivaled Picasso’s, Caballero had transformed himself into the blackest of Catholic bigots. Still, his job was to inveigle prominent poets and painters, above all Federico García Lorca and Picasso, into the Falange. An easy conquest was Max Jacob. A former poète maudit who had converted to Catholicism (with Picasso as a godfather), this superb gay poet needed no coercion to join the Falange cause. Lorca would try to stay above politics and ended up murdered by the Fascists. When contacted by emissaries of Caballero, Picasso initially played it safe.

Aware that Spain’s greatest artist was taking his family on a bull-fighting tour in August 1934, Caballero invited him to a dinner in his honor in San Sebastián given by the Falange’s gastronomic society. Picasso accepted. During dinner, El Jefe proposed a retrospective exhibition in Madrid financed by the Falange. Besides providing a Guardia Civil escort for the works, they would cover the insurance. Thirty years later, to cover up his acceptance of Caballero’s invitation, Picasso told his Argentinean friend Roberto Otero that when Caballero likened his eyes to Mussolini’s, he had taken the next train back to Paris. Untrue. He and his family stayed on in San Sebastián for several days being entertained by the Falange. No wonder Caballero later boasted, to Picasso’s rage, that he had won him over.