Francis Picabia

Francis Picabia (Parigi, 22 gennaio 1879 – Parigi, 30 novembre 1953) è stato un pittore e scrittore francese.

Biografia

Nacque a Parigi, da madre francese e padre spagnolo cancelliere all'ambasciata cubana di Parigi. Ebbe un'infanzia agitata, nonostante fosse emotivamente turbato. Studiò all'École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts. All'inizio della sua carriera, dal 1908 al 1913 fu fortemente influenzato prima dalla Scuola di Barbizon e da Alfred Sisley e Camille Pissarro, poi dall'impressionismo, cubismo (specialmente della Section d'Or) e infine astrattismo. Intorno al 1911 entrò a far parte del Gruppo Puteaux che incontrò nello studio di Jacques Villon nel paesino di Puteaux. Divenne quindi amico dell'artista Marcel Duchamp. Alcuni membri del gruppo erano Apollinaire, Albert Gleizes, Roger de La Fresnaye, Fernand Léger e Jean Metzinger.
Dal 1913 al 1915 Picabia fu spesso a New York e prese parte attiva nei movimenti avanguardisti, introducendo l'arte moderna (intesa come modernità e modernismo) negli Stati Uniti. Questi anni possono essere identificati come il periodo proto-dada, che consta maggiormente dei cosiddetti ritratti meccanici (portraits méchaniques): queste opere proponevano ironicamente temi meccanicistici di casuali grovigli di parti metalliche, dipinti e disegni di macchine. Tutti questi meccanismi da una parte irridevano il culto della macchina, dall'altra alludevano a rapporti sessuali. In seguito, nel 1916, pubblicò a Barcellona la prima copia del periodico dadaista 391, nel quale pubblicò i suoi primi disegni meccanici. Continuò la pubblicazione con l'aiuto dell'amico Duchamp negli Stati Uniti.
Picabia proseguì il proprio coinvolgimento nel movimento dadaista durante il 1919 a Zurigo e a Parigi prima di rompere il legame con i dada e sviluppare un interesse per il surrealismo nel 1921. Nel 1924 firma la sceneggiatura, composta solo di due pagine, del film Entr'acte, di René Clair. Nel 1925 cambiò di nuovo stile per ritornare all'arte figurativa. Durante gli anni trenta divenne molto amico di Gertrude Stein. Nei primi anni quaranta si trasferì nel sud della Francia dove il suo processo artistico prese una svolta inaspettata: produsse una serie di dipinti basati sul nudo e sul glamour delle riviste femminili francesi, con uno stile sfarzoso che sembrava sovvertire i classici nudi femminili. Prima della fine della Seconda guerra mondiale fece ritorno a Parigi dove riprese l'astrattismo e la poesia.
Morì a Parigi, nella stessa casa in cui era nato, il 30 novembre 1953. Il suo corpo è sepolto nel cimitero di Montparnasse.

Opere

Segue la lista delle più importanti opere di Picabia, sia in ambito pittorico che letterario. Tutte sono riportate col titolo originale.

Dipinti

Paysage (1898. Olio su tela. 34 × 23 cm. Collezione privata.)
Espagnole (1902. Olio su tela. 65 × 54 cm. Collezione privata.)
F. Picabia by F. Picabia (1903. Matita su carta. 25 × 20 cm. Collezione privata.)
Rivière (1905. Olio su tela. 27 × 19 cm. Collezione privata.)
Bords de l'eau à Poissy (circa 1906-07. Olio su tela. 73 × 92 cm. Collezione privata.)
Jeune fille (1912. Olio su tela. 100 × 81 cm. Collezione privata.)
Danseuse étoile sur un transatlantique (1913. Acquerello su carta. 75 × 55 cm. Collezione privata.)
La ville de New York aperçue à travers le corps. (1913. Guazzo, acquerello, matita ed inchiostro cinese su carta. 55 × 74.5 cm. Collezione privata.)
Parade Amoureuse (1917. Olio su cartone. 95 × 72 cm. Collezione privata.)
Abstrait Lausanne (circa 1918. Olio su cartone. 75 × 49 cm. Galerie Piltzer.)
Balance (circa 1919 Olio su cartone. 60 × 44 cm. Collezione privata.)
Guillaume Apollinaire in 1913 (circa 1920-30. Matita su carta. 30 × 20 cm. Collezione privata.
Broderie (1922. Tempera su cartone. 68 × 58 cm. Collezione privata.)
Junelle (circa 1921-22. Acquerello su carta. 74 × 60 cm. Collezione privata.)
L'aile (circa 1922. Inchiostro, matita e acquerello su carta. 62.5 × 47.5 cm. Collezione privata.)
Autoritratto (circa 1923. Inchiostro su carta. 25 × 21 cm. Collezione privata.)
Lever de soleil (1924. Inchiostro cinese su carta. 31 × 24 cm. Galerie Piltzer.)
Idylle (1924-27. Guazzo su carta. 75 × 105 cm. Collezione privata.)
Cyclope (circa 1924-26. Olio su cartone. 103 × 74 cm. Collezione privata.)
Le femme au chien (1924-26. Olio su cartone. 68.5 × 94 cm. Galerie Piltzer.)
Les seins (circa 1924-27. Olio su cartone. 99 × 75.5 cm. Collezione privata.)
Carnaval (circa 1924-27. Ripolin su tela. 105 × 74 cm. Collezione privata.)
Les acrobates (Gymnastique banale) (1925. Olio su pannello. 104 × 75 cm. Collezione privata.)
La femme de l'amour (circa 1927-28. Acquarello, matita e carboncino su carta. 105 × 75 cm. Galerie Piltzer.)
Corrida Transparence (circa 1927-30. Guazzo su carta. 50 × 65 cm. Collezione privata.)
Barcelone (circa 1927-28. Guazzo su carta. 87 × 75.5 cm. Collezione privata.)
Senza titolo (circa 1928-29. Acquarello su carta. 39 × 28 cm. Collezione privata.)
Villica-caja (1929. Olio su tela. 151 × 180 cm. Collezione privata.)
Hera (circa 1929. Olio su cartone. 105 × 75 cm. Collezione privata.)
Ridens (circa 1929. Guazzo e acquarello su cartone. 104 × 74 cm. Collezione privata.)
Lodola (1930-1931. Olio su tela. 196 × 130 cm. Collezione privata.)
Adam et Ève circa (1931. Olio su tela. 200 × 110 cm. Collezione privata.)
Mélibée (circa 1931. Olio su tela. 215 × 130 cm. Collezione privata.)
Ève (1934. Olio su tela. 41 × 33 cm. Collezione privata.)
Vierge à l'enfant (circa 1933-35. Olio su tela. 160 × 130 cm. Collezione privata.)
Les lavandières (circa 1935. Olio su tela. 92 × 73 cm. Collezione privata.)
Portrait of Woman (circa 1935. Olio su tela. 73 × 60.5 cm. Collezione privata.)
Visage de femme (1936. Olio su cartone. 61 × 37 cm. Collezione privata.
Cocolo (circa 1936-38. Olio su tela. 92 × 73 cm. Collezione privata.)
Paysage provençal (circa 1937-38. Olio su pannello. 51 × 40 cm. Collezione privata.)
Natura Morta (1937-38. Olio su cartone. 106.5 × 76 cm. Collezione privata.)
Composition abstraite (1937. Olio e guazzo su carta. 29 × 39 cm. Collezione privata.)
Viareggio (1938. Olio su cartone. 97.5 × 73.5 cm. Collezione privata.)
Autoritratto (circa 1940. Olio su cartone. 58 × 48 cm. Collezione privata.)
Nu de dos. Fond mer. (1940. Olio su legno. 75 × 53 cm. Collezione privata.)
Montparnasse (1940-41. Olio su cartone. 105.5 × 76.5 cm. Collezione privata.)
Deux Nus circa (1941. Olio su cartone. 106 × 75.5 cm. Collezione privata.)
Jeune fille aux fleurs (circa 1941-1942. Olio su cartone. 100 × 76 cm. Collezione privata.)
Les calanques (1942-44. Olio su legno. 105 × 75 cm. Collezione privata.)
Nu de dos (1942-44. Olio su legno. 105 × 75 cm. Collezione privata.)
Nude (1942. Olio su cartone. 105 × 76 cm. Collezione privata.)
La danseuse de french-cancan (circa 1942-43. Olio su legno. 105.4 × 76.5 cm. Collezione privata.)
Deux femmes aux pavots (1942-44. Olio su cartone. 105 × 75 cm. Collezione privata.)
L'élègante (circa 1942-43. Olio su cartone. 106 × 77 cm. Collezione privata.)
En faveur de la critique (1945. Olio su tela. 103 × 75 cm. Collezione privata.)
Suzanne (circa 1945. Olio su cartone. 92 × 73 cm. Collezione privata.)
Composition abstraite (1945-59. Olio su tela. 55 × 46 cm. Collezione privata.)
Autoritratto (1946. Matita su carta. 21 × 16.5 cm. Collezione privata.)
Bonheur de l'aveuglement (1947. Olio su legno. 151.5 × 96 cm. Collezione privata.)
Le brave (1947. Olio su cartone. 100 × 81 cm. Collezione privata.)
Coloque (1949. Olio su cartone. 96 × 129.5 cm. Collezione privata.)
L'encerclement (1950. Olio su pannello. 25.5 × 34.5 cm. Collezione privata.)
Petit soleil (1950. Olio su tela su cartone. 65 × 54 cm. Collezione privata.)
Mardi (1951. Olio su tela. 38 × 46 cm. Collezione privata.)
Jeudi (1951. Olio su tela. 46 × 38 cm. Collezione privata.)
Tableau vivant 1951. Olio su cartone. 105 × 74 cm. Collezione privata.)

Scritti

Dove è possibile sono inseriti l'editore, data e il luogo di pubblicazione.

Cinquante deux miroirs (1914-1917. Barcellona, ottobre 1917.)
Poème et dessins de la fille née sans mère (Losanna 1918.)
L'Ilot de beau-Séjour dans le canton de Nudité (Losanna, 23 giugno 1918.)
L'athlète des pompes funèbres (Bégnins, 24 novembre 1918.)
Râtelier Platoniques (Losanna, 1918.)
Poésie Ron-ron (Losanna, 24 febbraio 1919.)
Pensées sans langage (Parigi: Eugène Figuière, 1919.)
Unique Eunuque (Parigi: Au sans pareil, 1920.)
Jésus-Christ Rastaquouère (Parigi: Au sans pareil, 1920.)
La loi d'accommodation chez les borgnes (Editions Th. Briant, 15 maggio 1928.)
Thalassa dans le désert (Parigi: Fontaine, collection l'âge d'or, 1945.)
Exploration (Parigi: Vrille 1947.)
Choix de poèmes de Francis Picabia (Parigi: G.L.M., 1947.)
Caravansérail 1924 (Parigi: Pierre Belfond, 1974.)
Dits (Parigi: Eric Losfeld, edition le Terrain Vague.)
Vive Satie (Liegi: Edition Dynamo, novembre 1957.)
3 petits poèmes (Alès: PAB, 1949.)
Un Poème de Picabia (Alès: PAB, 1949.)
Poème sans titre (Alès: PAB, 1949.)
La raison (Alès: PAB, 1949.)
Médicalement (Alès: PAB, 1949.)
Innocence (Alès: PAB, 1949.)
Le lit (Alès: PAB, 1949.)
Chi-Lo-Sa (Alès: PAB, 1949.)
Je n'ai jamais cru (Alès: PAB, 1950.)
Pour et contre (Alès: PAB, 1950.)
Le Moindre effort (Alès: PAB, 1950.)
Le Dimanche (Alès: PAB, 1951.)
Ce que je désir m'est indifférent (Alès: PAB, 1951.)
Le Saint Masqué (Alès : PAB, 1951.)
591 (Alès: PAB, 1952.)
Réveil Matin (Alès: PAB.)
Ne pensez pas plus mal de moi (Alès: PAB, 1952.)
Fleur montée (Alès: PAB, 1952.)
Oui Non (Alès: PAB, 1953.)
Parlons d'autre chose (Alès: PAB, 1953.)
Les heures (Alès: PAB, 1953.)
Ne sommes-nous pas trahis par l'importance (Alès: PAB, 1953.)
Demain Dimanche (Alès: PAB, 1954.)
Poèmes de Dingalari (Alès: PAB, 1955.)
Maintenant (Alès: PAB, 1955.)
Mon crayon se voile (Alès: PAB, 1957.)
L'équilibre 1917 (Alès: PAB, 1958.)
691 (Alès: PAB, estate 1959.)
Ou bien on ne rêve pas (Alès: PAB, 1960.)
Laissez déborder le hasard (Alès: PAB, 1962.)

Francis Picabia, 1912, La Source (The Spring), oil on canvas, 249.6 x 249.3 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York. Exhibited at the 1912 Salon d'Automne, Paris

Francis Picabia - MoMA

Francis Picabia (French: [fʁɑ̃sis pikabja]; born Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia, 22 January 1879 – 30 November 1953) was a French avant-garde painter, poet and typographist. After experimenting with Impressionism and Pointillism, Picabia became associated with Cubism. His highly abstract planar compositions were colourful and rich in contrasts. He was one of the early major figures of the Dada movement in the United States and in France. He was later briefly associated with Surrealism, but would soon turn his back on the art establishment.

Biography

Early life

Francis Picabia was born in Paris of a French mother and a Cuban father who was an attaché at the Cuban legation in Paris. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was seven. Some sources would have his father as of aristocratic Spanish descent, whereas others consider him of non-aristocratic Spanish descent, from the region of Galicia. Financially independent, Picabia studied under Fernand Cormon and others at the École des Arts Decoratifs in the late 1890s.

In 1894, Picabia financed his stamp collection by copying a collection of Spanish paintings that belonged to his father, switching the originals for the copies, without his father's knowledge, and selling the originals. Fernand Cormon took him into his academy at 104 boulevard de Clichy, where Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec had also studied. From the age of 20, he lived by painting; he subsequently inherited money from his mother.

In the beginning of his career, from 1903 to 1908, Picabia was influenced by the Impressionist paintings of Alfred Sisley. Little churches, lanes, roofs of Paris, riverbanks, wash houses, lanes, barges—these were his subject matter. Some however, began to question his sincerity and said he copied Sisley, or that his cathedrals looked like Monet, or that he painted like Signac. From 1909, he came under the influence of those that would soon be called Cubists and later form the Golden Section (Section d'Or). The same year, he married Gabrielle Buffet.
Around 1911 Picabia joined the Puteaux Group, members of which he met at the studio of Jacques Villon in Puteaux; a commune in the western suburbs of Paris. There he became friends with artist Marcel Duchamp and close friends with Guillaume Apollinaire. Other group members included Albert Gleizes, Roger de La Fresnaye, Fernand Léger and Jean Metzinger.

Proto-Dada

Picabia was the only member of the Cubist group to personally attend the Armory Show, and Alfred Stieglitz gave him a solo show, Exhibition of New York studies by Francis Picabia, at his gallery 291 (formerly Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession), March 17 - April 5, 1913.
From 1913 to 1915 Picabia traveled to New York City several times and took active part in the avant-garde movements, introducing Modern art to America. When he landed in New York in June 1915, though it was ostensibly meant to be a simple port of call en route to Cuba to buy molasses for a friend of his—the director of a sugar refinery—the city snapped him up and the stay became prolonged.
The magazine 291 devoted an entire issue to him, he met Man Ray, Gabrielle and Duchamp joined him, drugs and alcohol became a problem and his health declined. He suffered from dropsy and tachycardia. These years can be characterized as Picabia's proto-Dada period, consisting mainly of his portraits mécaniques.

Manifesto

Later, in 1916, while in Barcelona and within a small circle of refugee artists that included Marie Laurencin, Olga Sacharoff, Robert Delaunay and Sonia Delaunay, he started his well-known Dada periodical 391, modeled on Stieglitz's own periodical. He continued the periodical with the help of Marcel Duchamp in the United States. In Zurich, seeking treatment for depression and suicidal impulses, he had met Tristan Tzara, whose radical ideas thrilled Picabia. Back in Paris, and now with his mistress Germaine Everling, he was in the city of "les assises dada" where André Breton, Paul Éluard, Philippe Soupault and Louis Aragon met at Certa, a Basque bar in the Passage de l'Opera. Picabia, the provocateur, was back home.
Picabia continued his involvement in the Dada movement through 1919 in Zürich and Paris, before breaking away from it after developing an interest in Surrealist art. (See Cannibale, 1921.) He denounced Dada in 1921, and issued a personal attack against Breton in the final issue of 391, in 1924.
The same year, he put in an appearance in the René Clair surrealist film Entr'acte, firing a cannon from a rooftop. The film served as an intermission piece for Picabia's avant-garde ballet, Relâche, premiered at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, with music by Erik Satie.

Later years

In 1922, André Breton relaunched Littérature magazine with cover images by Picabia, to whom he gave carte blanche for each issue. Picabia drew on religious imagery, erotic iconography, and the iconography of games of chance.

In 1925, Picabia returned to figurative painting, and during the 1930s became a close friend of the modernist novelist Gertrude Stein. In the early 1940s he moved to the South of France, where his work took a surprising turn: he produced a series of paintings based on the nude glamour photos in French "girlie" magazines like Paris Sex-Appeal, in a garish style which appears to subvert traditional, academic nude painting. Some of these went to an Algerian merchant who sold them, and so it passed that Picabia came to decorate brothels across North Africa under the Occupation.
Before the end of World War II, he returned to Paris where he resumed abstract painting and writing poetry. A large retrospective of his work was held at the Galerie René Drouin in Paris in the spring of 1949. Francis Picabia died in Paris in 1953 and was interred in the Cimetière de Montmartre.

Legacy

Public collections holding works by Picabia include the Museum of Modern Art and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Tate Gallery, London; the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris; and Museum de Fundatie, Zwolle, Netherlands.
From 21 November 2016 through 19 March 2017, the first retrospective of Picabia's work in the United States, Francis Picabia: Our Heads Are Round so Our Thoughts Can Change Direction, took place at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
In 2003, a Picabia painting once owned by André Breton sold for US$1.6 million.
Among the artists influenced by Picabia's work are the American artists David Salle and Julian Schnabel, the German artist Sigmar Polke and the Italian artist Francesco Clemente

Francis Picabia
Effect of Sunlight on the Banks of the Loing, Moret, 1905
Oil on canvas, 73.2 x 92.4 cm
Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Gertrude Schemm Binder Collection, 1951
© 2016 ProLitteris, Zürich

Horses, 1911, oil on canvas, 73.3 x 92.5 cm, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Published in the New York Times, New York, 16 February 1913, Page 121

Francis Picabia

Quotes

1910s

..giving plastic reality to inner states of the mind.
The aim of art is to get us to dream, just like music, for it expresses a mood projected onto the canvas, which arouses identical sensations in the viewer.
- two short quotes, in 'A Paris painter', by Hapgood, published in 'The Globe and Commercial Advertiser', 20 Febr. 1913, p. 8

I do not consider myself a Cubist either because I have come to the conclusion that cubes are not always made for expressing the thought of the brain and of the feeling of the spirit.. .I capture all these impressions [the visual sensations, Picabia sensed in the modern city] without any hurry to transfer to the canvas. I let them rest in my brain and then, when I'm visited by the spirit of creation, I improvise my paintings just as a musician improvises his music.
- In: 'How I see New York', in 'The New York American', New York 30 March 1913, p. 11

'Udnie – I see Again in Memory my Dear Udnie' is no more the portrait of a young girl than 'Edtaonisl' (counterpart of his work 'Udnie'] is the image of a prelate, as we ordinarily conceive of them. They are [both] memories of America, evocations of over there which, subtly set down like musical chords, become representative of an idea, a nostalgia, a fleeting impression.
- In: 'Ecrits: vol. 1', 1913 - 1920, Picabia, Belfond, Paris, p. 26
- 'Udnie – I see Again in Memory my Dear Udnie' is the title of a painting, he made in 1913; a memory of the dances performed by Stasia Napierkowska on the ship to New York, to visit the w:Armory Show, where Picabia was presented in 1913 as a 'leading Cubist painter'

Perhaps we'll be able to do beautiful things, since I have a stellar, insane desire to assassinate beauty.
- In a letter to Tristan Tzara, Summer 1919; as quoted in TaTa Dada: The Real Life and Celestial Adventures of Tristan Tzara, Marius Hentea, MIT Press, 12 Sep 2014, p. 151

Splendid, it has done me enormous good to finally see and read something in Switzerland that isn't bullshit. All of it is very nice, it is really something; your manifesto expresses every philosophy seeking truth, when there is no truth, only convention.
- In a letter to Tristan Tzara, Nov. 1919, (after having received a copy of 'Manifesto Dada 3.', written by Tzara); as quoted in: TaTa Dada: The Real Life and Celestial Adventures of Tristan Tzara, Marius Hentea, MIT Press, 12 Sep 2014, p. 115

1920s

The Cubists want to cover Dada with snow; that may surprise you, but it is so, they want to empty the snow from their pipe to bury DaDa.
Are you sure?
Positively sure, the facts are revealed by grotesque mouths. They think that Dada can prevent them from practicing this odious trade: Selling art expensively.
Art costs more than sausages, more than women, more than everything.
Art is visible like God (see Saint-Sulpice).
Art is a pharmaceutical product for imbeciles.
The table turns thanks to spirit; the paintings and other works of arts are like strong-box tables, the spirit is inside and becomes more and more
inspired according to the auction prices.
Farce, farce, farce, farce, farce, my dear friends.
- In 'DADA manifesto 1920'; as quoted in Manifesto: A Century of Isms, ed. Mary Ann Caws, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001, nr. 9.16 Francis Picabia, p 318

FRANCIS PICABIA
is an imbecile, an idiot, a pickpocket!!!
1921
BUT
He saved Arp from constipation!
The first mechanical work was created
by madam Tzara the Day she put
little Tristan into the world, however she
didn't know it
funny girl
Francis Picabia
is an imbecilic Spanish professor
who has never been dada
FRANCIS PICABIA IS NOTHING
FRANCIS PICABIS likes the morality of idiots
Arp's binocle is Tristan’s testicle
FRANCIS PICABIS IS NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!
But Arp was Dada before Dada.
- In 'Manifesto, 1921'; as quoted in Manifesto: A Century of Isms, ed. Mary Ann Caws, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001, p 319

It is not a recognisable scene [his two paintings 'Dances at the spring', 1912 - Picabia painted the motion and the excitement of a peasant dance while he was on his honeymoon in the countryside of Italy; one version is lost]. There is no dancer, no spring, no light, no perspective, nothing other than the visible clue of the sentiments I am trying to express.. .I would draw your attention to a song of colours, which will bring out for others the joyful sensations and feelings inspired in me on those summer days when I found myself somewhere in the country near the Italian border, where there was a spring in a wonderful garden. A photograph of that spring and that garden would in now way look like my painting 'Dance at a spring' I was shown for the first time at the w:Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1912.
- As quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 200

Quotes about Francis Picabia

We [ Tristan Tzara and Jean Arp ] found him [Picabia in 1919, in his hotel in Zürich] busy dissecting an alarm-clock.. .Ruthlessly he slashed away at his alarm-clock down to the spring, which he pulled out triumphantly.. ..and soon impressed the wheels, the spring, the hands and other secret parts of the clock on pieces of paper. He tied these impressions together with lines and accompanied the drawing with comments of a rare wit far removed from the world of mechanical stupidity. He was creating antimechanical machines.. ..machines of the unconsciousness..
- Jean Arp (1919), in 'Chronique Zurichoise', 1915 – 1919, O.C. 1:562; as quoted in TaTa Dada: The Real Life and Celestial Adventures of Tristan Tzara, Marius Hentea, MIT Press, 12 Sep 2014, p. 115

One does something for six months, a year, and one goes on to something else. That's what Picabia did all his life.
- Marcel Duchamp, as quoted in TaTa Dada: The Real Life and Celestial Adventures of Tristan Tzara, Marius Hentea, MIT Press, 12 Sep 2014, p. 121

The Dance at the Spring, 1912, oil on canvas, 120.5 x 120.6 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art. Exhibited at the 1913 Armory Show

Paysage à Cassis (Landscape at Cassis), 1911–12, oil on canvas, 50.3 × 61.5 cm, private collection

Dovunque appare l'arte, scompare la vita.
Il mondo è diviso in due categorie: falliti e sconosciuti.
L'attaccamento alla famiglia ha reso l'uomo carnivoro.
L'essenza di un uomo si trova nei suoi difetti.
Tutti i credi sono idee nude.
La nostra testa è rotonda per permettere ai pensieri di cambiare direzione.

The Procession, Seville, 1912, oil on canvas, 121.9 x 121.9 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.

Tarentelle, 1912, oil on canvas, 73.6 x 92.1 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York. Reproduced in Du "Cubisme" by Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger, published in 1912

Edtaonisl (Ecclesiastic), 1913, oil on canvas, 300.4 x 300.7 cm, Art Institute of Chicago

Catch as Catch Can, 1913, oil on canvas, 100.6 x 81.6 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art

Star Dancer on a Transatlantic Steamer, 1913

Francis Picabia, 1919, Danse de Saint-Guy, 104.4 x 84 cm, Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée National d'Art Moderne. Reproduced in The Little Review, Picabia number, Autumn 1922

Francis Picabia, 391 - The Little Review: Quarterly Journal of Art and Letters, Vol. 8, No. 2, 1922

Francis Picabia, 1913, Udnie (Young American Girl, The Dance), oil on canvas, 290 x 300 cm, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.

Picabia paintings published in the New York Tribune, 9 March 1913

Francis Picabia (painting), New York Tribune (newspaper) - Cubism, Futurism, press articles and reviews

Francis Picabia, paintings published in the New York Tribune, 9 March 1913. Picabia held his first one-man show in New York, Exhibition of New York studies by Francis Picabia, at 291 art gallery (formerly Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession), March 17 - April 5, 1913.

Francis Picabia, Ici, c'est ici Stieglitz, foi et amour, cover of 291, No1, 1915

Fille née sans mère (Girl Born Without a Mother), 1915, work on paper, 47.4 x 31.7 cm, Musée d'Orsay

Voilà Haviland (La poésie est comme lui), Portrait mécanomorphe de Paul B. Haviland, 1915, Musée d'Orsay

(Left) Le saint des saints c'est de moi qu'il s'agit dans ce portrait, 1 July 1915; (center) Portrait d'une jeune fille américaine dans l'état de nudité, 5 July 1915: (right) J'ai vu et c'est de toi qu'il s'agit, De Zayas! De Zayas! Je suis venu sur les rivages du Pont-Euxin, New York, 1915

"Femme (Elle)" by Marius de Zayas; "Voila Elle" by Francis Picabia

Marius de Zayas and Francis Picabia - 91, No 9, 1915

Machine Turn Quickly, 1916-1918, tempera on paper, National Gallery of Art

Francis Picabia, Réveil Matin (Alarm Clock), Dada 4-5, Number 5, 15 May 1919

Réveil Matin (Alarm Clock), 1919, ink on paper, 31.8 x 23 cm, Tate, London

Francis Picabia, Dada Movement, Dada, Number 5, 15 May 1919

André Breton at Dada festival in Paris bearing a sign designed by Francis Picabia

Unknown 1920

Portrait of Cézanne, Portrait of Renoir, Portrait of Rembrandt, 1920, Toy monkey and oil on cardboard, dimensions and whereabouts unknown. Reproduced in Cannibale, Paris, n. 1, April 25, 1920

La Sainte Vierge (The Blessed Virgin), 1920, ink and graphite on paper, 33 x 24 cm, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris

Francis Picabia. Le Lierre unique
eunuque (The Unique Eunuch Ivy).
1920. Enamel paint and metallic paint
on board, 29 1/2 × 41 5/16″ (75 × 105 cm).
Kunsthaus Zürich. © 2016 Artist Rights
Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris.
Photo courtesy Kunsthaus Zürich

Francis Picabia, 1921, L'oeil cacodylate, oil and collage on canvas, 148.6 x 117.4 cm, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris

Optophone I, c. 1921-22, ink, acrylic, and graphite on paper, 72 x 60 cm. Reproduced in Galeries Dalmau, Picabia, exhibition catalogue, Barcelona, November 18 - December 8, 1922

Pictures of an exhibit about The Paral·lel avenue in Barcelona that took place in CCCB cultural center between october 2012 and feb 2013. El Paral·lel emerges from the project to extend the city designed by Ildefons Cerdà. From its birth, a series of contradictory urban planning regulations facilitated the appearance of ephemeral buildings and the conversion of this street into a dense area of leisure and entertainment. The result was a leisure district for the masses, perfectly comparable to those existing in other major European urban agglomerations at that time, but that immediately became a genuine cultural expression of the social and political conflict that characterised the Barcelona of the early 20th century. El Paral·lel generated shows with perfectly differentiated contents and formats, made up by the audience and the artists. This exhibition will explain, therefore, why a new entertainment area emerged in the city, leading the weight of the theatrical axis to move from the Plaça Catalunya-Passeig de Gràcia area to the Nou de la Rambla-Paral·lel area.

Kippelboy - Own work

Francis Picabia. La Nuit espagnole (The Spanish Night). 1922. Enamel paint and oil on canvas, 63 × 51 3/16″ (160 × 130 cm). Museum Ludwig, Cologne. Ludwig Collection. © 2016 Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo © Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln. • Francis Picabia. La Feuille de vigne (The Fig Leaf). 1922. Oil and enamel paint on canvas, 78 3/4 × 62 3/16″ (200 × 160 cm). Tate. Purchased 1984. © 2016 Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo © Tate, London 2016. • Francis Picabia. Dresseur d’animaux (Animal Trainer). 1923. Enamel paint on canvas, 8′ 2 7/16″ × 6′ 6 3/4″ (250 × 200 cm). Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre de création industrielle, Paris. Purchase from a public sale, 1998. © 2016 Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI/Georges Meguerdtchian/Dist. RMN–Grand Palais/Art Resource, New York

Francis Picabia. Les Amoureux (Après
la pluie) (The Lovers [After the Rain]).
1925. Enamel paint and oil on canvas,
45 11/16 × 45 1/4″ (116 × 115 cm).
Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de
Paris. © 2016 Artist Rights Society
(ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo
© Musée d’Art Moderne/Roger-Viollet

Francis Picabia Jeune fille 1926

Espagnole et agneau de l'apocalypse, c. 1927-28, gouache, watercolour and brush and ink on paper, 65 × 50 cm, private collection

Hera, c. 1929, oil on cardboard, 105 × 75 cm, private collection

Francis Picabia. Portrait d'un docteur
(Portrait of a Doctor). 1935/c. 1938.
Oil on canvas, 36 1/4 × 28 11/16″ (92
× 72.8 cm). Tate. Purchase with
assistance from the Friends of the
Tate Gallery, 1990. © 2016 Artist
Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP,
Paris. Photo © Tate, London 2016

Cocolo, 1936–1938
oil on canvas
92 x 73 cm. (36.2 x 28.7 in.)

FRANCIS PICABIA
The Nudes 1940 circa

Nu de dos, 1940-‐42 Oil on board
41 . x 30 in. / 104 x 76 cm.

Femmes au bull-dog, 1941–1942
Oil on Cardboard
106 x 76 cm. (41.7 x 29.9 in.)

Nude, 1942
oil, cardboard 105 x 76 cm
Private Collection

Francis Picabia. Portrait d’un couple
(Portrait of a Couple). 1942–43. Oil
on board, 41 5/8 × 30 1/2″ (105.7 ×
77.4 cm). The Museum of Modern Art,
New York. Purchase, 2000. © 2016
Artist Rights Society (ARS), New
York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo courtesy The
Museum of Modern Art, John Wronn

Francis Picabia. Égoïsme (Selfishness).
1947–48/c. 1950. Oil on panel, in original
wood frame, 73 1/4 × 49 5/8 × 2 3/4″
(186 × 126.1 × 7 cm), with frame. Museum
Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.
© 2016 Artist Rights Society (ARS), New
York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Museum
Boijmans Van Beuningen, Studio Tromp

Force Comique, Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, MA

Bain News Service,, publisher. [Francis Picabia and F.M. Mansfield with 2 women and a man at outdoor café table. Gassis(?)] [between ca. 1915 and ca. 1920] 1 negative : nitrate ; 5 x 7 in. or smaller. Notes: Title from unverified data provided by the Bain News Service on the negatives or caption cards. Forms part of: George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress). Format: Nitrate negatives. Rights Info: No known restrictions on publication. Repository: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA,