Francis Picabia

FRANCIS PICABIA (Paris, 1879-1953).
"Two models", 1920.
Ink and watercolor on paper.
Measurements: 33 x 20 cm; 51 x 38 cm (frame).
Provenance: Godia Collection, Barcelona. Artur Ramon Gallery, Barcelona.
Francis Picabia was a French avant-garde painter, poet and typographer. After experimenting with Impressionism and Pointillism, Picabia became associated with Cubism. His highly abstract flat compositions were colorful and rich in hallmarks. He was one of the first important figures of the Dada movement in the United States and France. He later became briefly associated with Surrealism, but would soon turn his back on the art establishment. Early in his career, from 1903 to 1908, Picabia was influenced by the Impressionist paintings of Alfred Sisley. From 1909, he came under the influence of the Cubists who would later form the Golden Section (Section d'Or). Picabia was the only member of the Cubist group to personally attend the Armory Show in New York, thus getting Alfred Stieglitz to facilitate a solo exhibition, Francis Picabia's New York Studies exhibition, at his gallery 291 (formerly Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession).Picabia traveled to New York City several times and was active in the avant-garde movements, introducing modern art to America. In 1922, André Breton relaunched the magazine Littérature with cover images by Picabia, whom he gave carte blanche for each issue. 1925, Picabia returned to figurative painting, and during the 1930s he 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 nude glamour photos in French "girlie" magazines such as Paris Sex-Appeal.Before the end of World War II, he returned to Paris, where he resumed abstract painting and writing poetry. Today his works are in important private and public collections. Highlights include the Museum of Modern Art and the 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, The Netherlands.