For Sale: Three Works By the Painter Also Called Franco

They may not be worth as much as the Rubens due to go under the hammer at a Spanish auction house next month but all eyes will be on three mediocre oils painted by an amateur, a young officer in the Spanish army. The auction house says it will be the first time that works by the country’s former dictator, Francisco Franco, who signed his work Gironès, have been auctioned.

The three paintings will have a starting price of €9,000 (£6,100) each, considerably above their artistic value, as collectors of Franco memorabilia are expected to flock to the sale on April 5. The three oils are scenes from Morocco where Franco spent much of his early career in the Spanish army.

The auction house said yesterday it had based the starting price more on the painter than on the paintings. "It reflects the value of the person, not the artistic value of the oils," said Ramón García, director of the Seville-based Arte, Información y Gestión auctioneers.

Although obviously the work of an amateur, Mr. García said the paintings also reflected a degree of "quality and dignity".

"They are colorful and well executed scenes reflecting the atmosphere of a place where he spent part of his life," he said. Franco occasionally liked to relax by painting or drawing, Mr. García added. His favorite subjects were hunting, fishing and nature according to a website dedicated to his memory which has photos of him standing in front of his easel.

Franco had a meteoric career as a young army officer commanding Spanish troops in Morocco. He became Europe’s youngest general when, aged 33, he was promoted to the rank in 1926. Ten years later he would take command of a rightwing military uprising against the elected government of the Republic.

That uprising started the Spanish civil war and ushered in one of Europe’s longest 20th-century dictatorships, which lasted until his death from natural causes in 1975.

The oils were a gift from Franco’s daughter, Carmen, to an unnamed person who had worked for her for 30 years. They were being sold by that person’s son, whose was also not named.

Painting was just one of the generalísimo’s hobbies. He was also a film fan and had a movie made out of a novel, called Raza, or Race, that he wrote under a pseudonym.