Francis Picabia

Selected Works

Picabia_Don Juan Indochinois_vers1926_aquarelle_encre et fusain sur papier_63x48cm_©galeriepatricetrigano copie.jpg

Francis Picabia
Don Juan Indochinois, circa 1926
Watercolor, ink and charcoal on paper
63 x 48 cm
Signed lower right; tagged on the back

contact the Gallery

Francis Picabia
L’Espagnole, vers 1939-1941
Watercolor on paper
41,9 x 27,7 cm
Signed lower right

contact the Gallery

Francis PICABIA Le chat blanc, vers 1940-1943 Crayon et huile sur cardboard 47,5 x 39 cm Signé en bas à droite copie.jpg

Francis Picabia
Le chat blanc, circa 1940-1943
Huile sur panneau
47,5 x 39 cm
Signé en bas à droite

contact the Gallery

Some of the works depicted are no longer available.

Biography

An emerging artist of the French Dada movement, proclaiming himself a "loustic, an idiot, a clown" rather than a painter, Picabia marked the painting of the interwar period with his anti-conformist and provocative spirit which allowed him to combine literature, cinema, dance and his travel memories in his works.

After studying at the School of Decorative Arts, Francis Picabia (1879-1953) joined the Puteaux group in 1911, then founded the magazine DADA 291 and moved to Paris in 1917. In the Dada spirit, he created works using a technique of superimposing collages of various objects such as buttons, toothpicks, etc. In 1924, he devoted himself entirely to painting and created the surrealist series Transparencies, which consisted of covering the faces of great figures in the history of art. He also used the process of automatic painting. His great friend Marcel Duchamp described him as the greatest representative of freedom in art because of his provocative and anti-conformist character.

After having participated as a cartoonist in the surrealist magazine Littérature, he moved away from the group to become interested in cinema and photography. Then, in 1945, he returned to abstraction.
During these years, he had the support of major dealers and collectors such as Léonce Rosenberg, Jacques Doucet and Michel Tapié.
After his death, major retrospective exhibitions focusing mainly on his art after 1945 took place in Switzerland, Sweden and Spain.