FRANCIS PICABIA - Biography
Picabia, Francis (owner Francisco Martínez de Picabia de la Torre). - Painter and writer (Paris 1879 - 1953 there), of a Cuban father and a French mother. Among the most significant and disconcerting personalities of the early avant-garde, he began to paint in the Impressionist manner, influenced by Pissarro and Sisley. From 1908 he began the search for new forms: he approached the Fauves, Cubism and met Apollinaire and Duchamp; he was also one of the founders of the Section d'Or and of orphism. In New York in 1913 he exhibited at the Armory Show and in 1915 he came into contact with A. Stieglitz. Of this period, Udnie (Paris, Musée d'art moderne) is noteworthy. With Voilà la fille née sans mère (1916-17, watercolors and drawings) began the phase inspired by machines. From 1919 with T. Tzara in Paris he was among the animators of Dadaism. After 1925 he executed the series of monsters, Spanish and transparencies, in which he inserted figurative elements. After having painted (1940-43) some academic nudes for an Algerian merchant, P. returned to abstractionism with some works that he defined sur-unrealistic. He was also a poet and wrote the screenplay for the film by R. Clair Entr'acte (1924).
