Candace Clements

This publication is the fourth volume of an important catalogue raisonné of the work of Francis Picabia This publication, the fourth volume of an important catalogue raisonné of the work of Francis Picabia (1879–1953), includes paintings and selected drawings dating from 1940 into 1952. During the war years, while still residing in the south of France, Picabia was primarily occupied by figural subjects?—multi-figure allegories, female nudes, and glamorous female "portraits"?—painted in bold illusionistic relief. Notorious even in his lifetime, most of these works are now known to have adapted photographic illustrations in older "girly" magazines and other popular media. Upon his return to Paris in the post-war period, Picabia renewed his earlier interests in abstract and sometimes non-objective art, still often drawing upon published sources ranging from prehistoric art to Nietzsche, and pursued frequent exhibition of his distinctive, constantly mutating responses to critical currents of the day. These included a series of severely reductive, subtly effective "point" or dot paintings beginning in 1949—three years before ill-health effectively ended Picabia’s half-century of artistic provocation. Distributed for Mercatorfonds

The second of an important multi-volume catalogue project, this publication features work by Francis Picabia (1879-1953) that dates from 1915 into mid-1927. Beginning with Picabia’s elaboration of a personal machinist aesthetic, the book continues by looking at the artist’s central role in the formulation of the Paris Dada movement. That irreverent movement included Picabia’s increasingly provocative mechanomorphic compositions, complemented by his unorthodox writings and graphic designs as well as socially powerful performances. In the 1920s, Picabia turned to striking geometrical abstractions, subversive figurative art, and a collaboration in 1924 with the Swedish Ballet. The volume finishes with a look at Picabia’s creations of the mid-1920s, which included memorable collages and flamboyant figurative compositions known as the "monsters.” Distributed for Mercatorfonds