Michael Werner Gallery, Beverly Hills is pleased to present Francis Picabia: Femmes, an exhibition of paintings by the French modern master Francis Picabia (b. 1879 in Paris, d. 1953 in Paris). Starting in the 1920s and extending into the 1950s, the exhibition charts the last three decades of Picabia’s career through the singular, classic, and favored subject matter of women.
Picabia famously wrote, “In order to have clean ideas, change them as often as your shirt.” Throughout his career, Picabia shifted rapidly between styles. Founding and then rejecting almost every major artistic movement of the early 20th century, paintings of women remained at the core of Picabia’s practice. Due to the long historic, academic tradition of painting the female body, women were the perfect subject matter for Picabia’s endless efforts to upend, subvert, and reinterpret modern painting.
Francis Picabia: Femmes includes masterpieces from Picabia’s many experimentations in painting, including his frenzied “Monster” series, revolutionary “Transparencies”, and proto-Pop portraits of pin-up models and actresses. Picabia’s work defies our conventional understanding of modern art. Extremely influential to succeeding generations of artists, Picabia’s oeuvre, on view in this exhibition of paintings of women, provides an alternative, more open, narrative of 20th century art.
Francis Picabia
“Deux personnages transparents”, ca. 1924-1932
Oil on board mounted on wood
41 1/4 x 29 1/2 inches
105 x 75 cm
PIC 73
Francis Picabia
“Têtes”, ca. 1930-1934
Oil on canvas
21 3/4 x 18 inches
55 x 46 cm
PIC 74
Francis Picabia
"Monstre (Venus et Adonis)", ca. 1924-1927
Oil on wood
41 1/4 x 29 1/4 inches
104.5 x 74.5 cm
PIC 80
Francis Picabia
"Papion", ca. 1936-38
Oil on canvas
25 1/2 x 21 1/4 inches
65 x 54 cm
PIC 92
Francis Picabia
"Tableau de poche", 1942
Oil on board
4 x 3 1/4 inches
10 x 8 cm
PIC 93
Francis Picabia
“Untitled”, ca. 1936-1937
Oil on wood
39 1/4 x 39 1/4 inches
100 x 100 cm
PIC 121
Francis Picabia
"Untitled", 1935
Oil on canvas
45 1/2 x 35 inches
115.5 x 89 cm
PIC 126
Francis Picabia
"Montparnasse", ca. 1941-42
Oil on board
41 1/2 x 30 inches
105.5 x 76.5 cm
PIC 143
(Pair: PIC 133 & PIC 143)
Francis Picabia
"Untitled", ca. 1940-1941
Oil on board mounted on wood
19 3/4 x 15 1/4 inches
50 x 39 cm
PIC 133
(Pair: PIC 133 & PIC 143)
Francis Picabia
“La gitane”, ca. 1942-1943
Oil on board
25 1/2 x 20 1/2 inches
65 x 52 cm
PIC 136
Francis Picabia
“Mère et enfant”, ca. 1937
Oil on wood
39 1/2 x 33 1/2 inches
100.5 x 85 cm
PIC 151
Francis Picabia
“Portrait de femme”, ca. 1936-1937
Oil, pencil on board
18 x 15 inches
46 x 38 cm
PIC 158
Francis Picabia
“Tableau de poche (Nu)”, 1942
Oil on board
3 1/4 x 2 3/4 inches
8.5 x 7 cm
PIC 159
Francis Picabia
"Edulis", circa 1930-1930
Oil on canvas
39 1/2 x 31 3/4 inches
100 x 81 cm
PIC 167
Francis Picabia
“Briseis”, ca. 1929
Oil, pencil on canvas
28 3/4 x 23 1/2 inches
73 x 60 cm
PIC 209
Francis Picabia
“La Résistance”, ca. 1943-1944
Oil, pencil on board
29 1/2 x 20 1/2 inches
75 x 52 cm
PIC 212
Francis Picabia
“La blonde au coquelicot”, ca. 1942-1943
Oil on cardboard mounted on canvas
36 1/4 x 28 1/4 inches
92 x 72 cm
FRPI 2
