Francis Picabia was a French avant-garde painter, writer, filmmaker, magazine publisher, poet, and typographist closely associated with Dada.
Paintings by Francis Picabia
La Nuit Espagnole (The Spanish Night) (1922)
La Nuit Espagnole (The Spanish Night) is an enamel on canvas painting by French artist Francis Picabia, created in 1922. It is held at the Museum Ludwig, in Cologne.
The painting is divided in two halves, each one depicts two black and white silhouettes, one male and the other female. The black silhouette of the man is on the left side, while the white silhouette of the woman is at the right side. On the left top of the canvas it reads the title "La Nuit Espagnole", in French. At the bottom left it reads "Sangre Andaluza" (Andalucian blood), in Spanish. The signature of the artist appears at the bottom right. The meaning of the work is complicated by the presence of two colored targets on the female figure, one at her chest and the other at her belly, but also by the strange position of the man, who raises his arms and hands open to her. It can be seen as representing a knife thrower, a banderilla planter or a fandango dancer.
Udnie (1913)
Udnie, also known as Udnie (Young American Girl, The Dance), is an oil on canvas painting by French artist Francis Picabia, executed in 1913. It is held at the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, in Paris.
This painting is believed to have been inspired by the performance of a Hindu style dance by Polish dancer Stasia Napierkowska, on board of the ship that brought Picabia to the United States, in 1913, where he was going to attend the Armory Show exhibition of modern art, in Chicago. The painting name is possibly an anagram of the name of musicologist Jean d'Udine, who had a theory of sensory correspondences.
The Procession, Seville (1912)
The Procession, Seville is an oil on canvas painting by French artist Francis Picabia, created in 1912. It is held at the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C.
The painting was first exhibited at the Salon de la Section d'Or in 1912, at the Salon des Indépendants in 1913 and then at the Armory Show, in Chicago, the same year.
The Double World (Picabia) (1919)
The Double World is an enamel and oil on cardboard painting by the French painter Francis Picabia, created in December 1919. It has been held in the Musée National d'Art Moderne, in Paris.
Picabia was involved in the Dada movement. This provocative painting represents the letters "LHOOQ" inscribed vertically in black rings on a brown background, where more marginal textual indications take the form of the handling instructions that can be found on a cardboard box. This painting was inspired by L.H.O.O.Q., the famous work by Marcel Duchamp which parodies the Mona Lisa through an obscene pun. Picabia had rejected cubism after World War I, embrancing the apparent anti-art movement of dada, and his second exhibition of the Section d'Or, in 1920, shows his new artistic experiments. Picabia claimed that his geometric studies were capable of creating works in accordance with a universal harmony, inspired by Leonardo da Vinci.
Animal Trainer (Picabia) (1923)
Animal Trainer is an enamel on canvas painting by the French painter Francis Picabia, created in 1923. It is held at the Musée National d'Art Moderne, in Paris.
This painting represents a male black silhouette, with a long nose, raising his also black whip above four dogs of different colours on the ground and an owl on a perch, in a grey background. The dogs seem indifferent to his command, with the exception of one of them, who stands in front of him. The scene appears circus inspired but its meant to be most likely an ironic allegory to the current state of modern art. The title appears in the upper left corner and the artist's signature in the opposite corner, where the work is falsely dated of July 5, 1937.
The Spring (1912)
The Spring (or La Source) is a large oil painting created in 1912 by the French artist Francis Picabia. The work, both Cubist and abstract, was exhibited in Paris at the Salon d'Automne of 1912. The Cubist contribution to the 1912 Salon d'Automne created a controversy in the Municipal Council of Paris, leading to a debate in the Chambre des Députés about the use of public funds to provide the venue for such 'barbaric' art. The Cubists were defended by the Socialist deputy, Marcel Sembat. This painting was realized as Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger, in preparation for the Salon de la Section d'Or, published a major defence of Cubism, resulting in the first theoretical essay on the new movement, Du «Cubisme». The painting forms part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York City.
The Spring is an oil painting on canvas with dimensions 249.6 x 249.3 cm (8' 2 1/4" x 8' 2 1/8"). It was executed by Picabia upon return from a road trip with two friends; the poet Guillaume Apollinaire and the composer Claude Debussy, during the summer of 1912. During the trip, Picabia is quoted: "Are blue and red unintelligible? Are not the circle and the triangle, volumes and colors, as intelligible as this table?"
Q3363223 (1917)
"Parade amoureuse" (Love parade), oil on canvas 96,5 cm X 73,7 cm. Private collection.
Hache-Paille (1922)
Obra de Francis Picabia, se trata de una cortadora de paja
Veglione, Cannes (1924)
"Veglione, Cannes", canvas 93 x 73 cm
Lever de soleil (1924)
Lever de soleil 31 x 24 cm
Salicis (1929)
Salicis Peinture sur contreplaqué 157 x 90 cm Legs de Mme Lucienne Rosenberg, 1995 N° d'inventaire AM 2000-196
Q136333562 (1940)
"Femmes au bull-dog", huile sur carton 106 x 76 cm.