Francis Picabia (1879-1953)

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Picabia, the son of a Spaniard, rodiashegosya in Cuba, and French, was born in Paris in 1879 his mother died when he was 9 years old, and he grew up surrounded by men - a father, uncle and grandfather, a passionate amateur photographers. According to one version of his biography, interest in the painting showed a young Picabia, one day when his grandfather told him that the picture will soon supplant the painting, to which he replied: "You can photograph landscapes, but not my thoughts." According to another version, Picabia copied from his father secretly old masters hanging in their homes, and sold them because he needed money for stamps.

Leaving school in 1895, Picabia joined the High School of Arts dekorativnyz. In 1902 he first exhibited at the Salon of French artists. In his works of this time shows the influence of Pissarro and Sisley - this is his Impressionist period. Soon came the success and fame. He exhibited at the Salon d'Automne, the Salon of Independent, as well as gallery Berthe Weill. Later he signed with the prestigious gallery kontrekt Haussmann. In 1905, the gallery owner, Mr. Danton organized the first of three exhibitions, posvyaschennyzh Picabia. Painting Picabia fully adequate to the Symbolist-synthetic to concepts end of XIX century: the art is regarded not as an imitation and reproduction of nature but as an emotional experience from the artist's contact with her, he expressed suektivno in the synthesis of shapes and colors.

In 1909, despite its strong reputation, after the exhibition in the gallery of Georges Petit, Picabia abandoned impressitonisticheskogo style of painting and began his adventure and the world of Modernism. Hudozhestvevnny world of Paris refused to allow him to understand, no criticism, no customers, no gallery owners did not want to understand this dramatic change in his work. In March 1909 Danton sold at auction for next to nothing more than a hundred Impressionist canvases Picabia, which he had purchased earlier.

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Between 1909 and 1914. Picabia rubbed all about "-isms" the beginning of the century: Fauvism, Futurism, Cubism and orphism in search of a new artistic language of modernism.
"There was not one artist who could invent so many new trends, but Picabia gave no trouble to systematically develop the artistic formula" - Marc de Bo wrote in his book, "Francis Picabia and figurative crisis of values."

During this period, Picabia was searching for an artistic language that would have given him the opportunity to express their emotional and mental state. He regularly exhibited at the salons - first of fovistskogo period in 1911, then, in sleluyuschem year, Cubist canvases. In 1913, he showed a more abstract works - "Tarantella" and "Port of Naples" ...
He joined the Society of Modern Painting of Normandy, where he became acquainted with other artists in the vanguard. 1910-11 gg. marked the beginning of his friendship with Marcel Duchamp and the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, izobretalem term "orphism" denoting artistic trend, based on pure painting by analogy with the music.

In 1913 an important event in the history of modern art - International Exhibition of Modern Art in New York Armory Show.
Picabia went there as a representative and a herald of the European avant-garde and immediately became famous. In this exhibition were shown 4 works of the artist. Picabia gave a press interview in which to explain that "depicts on canvas my soul," and that "the public should not look at his paintings of photographic reproduction seen, she should look at these pictures as an attempt to express the purity of the abstract reality of form and color themselves by itself. Critics, I must say, most of them were soon lost, many have written that these "color harmony" they saw "a danger to art," "hoax" or even "conspiracy". Rather than originally envisaged Picabia spent two weeks in New York 6 months.
In New York, Picabia met with the photographer Alfred Shtayglittsem and a group of his friends, exhibited in Gallery 291 on Fifth Avenue. Was organized to show in this gallery.

Picabia was left of New York impressed: "New York - is the world's only cubist city ... a futuristic city. It expresses modern thinking in its architecture, in his life, in their spirit. "

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At the beginning of the First World War his family was sent on a mission to Cuba, but he did to her and did not get, who stayed in New York, where he had a transplant. There he resumed his contacts with Shtayglittsem and Duchamp. In 1915, in an article entitled "French artists promote American art", he wrote: "The car became more than a mere instrument of human life. She became a real part of human life. I took possession of the mechanics of the modern world and gave it to penetrate into my studio /... /I want to reach the top of the mechanical symbolism ... ". Using the symbolic vocabulary of machines marks the beginning of "mehanomorficheskogo" period in his work, in which the machine torn from their familiar contexts and stanovyats clean objects, often erotizirovannymi.

In 1916, Picabia exhibited at Modern Gallery new series of mechanical paintings. But this flurry of activity led Picabia to depression. In Barcelona, where he moved, he began to study poetry. In 1917 he published his first collection of poems. In the same year he began to publish the magazine "391" - the recollection of the journal Shtayglittsa, in which the tone was decidedly provocative Dadaist. The journal is published prior to 1924

In the spring of 1917 he again went to New York, where he mainly Dadaist works.
Back in Paris, he takes an active part in the Dadaists, to which he had a great impact: with his light hand it gets to the subject of ridicule Dadaists: the art and artists, religion and nationalism: "the artists say they do not care about the bourgeoisie; well, but I do not care and the bourgeoisie, and the artists.

However, he feels lonely sebyaya: "the only way to do so for you to follow it to run faster than others."

In 1920 g.dadaisty reign in Paris, but next year there are differences between them, and Picabia moves away from the group "I invented Dadaism, as a person in a burning forest burns all around him, so as not to burn" - he wrote.

He harshly criticizes them for their conformism. In 1923-24. Picabia works a lot in the technique of collage.

Straightened with the Dadaists, he declared war surrealist, which he called "trumped-up traffic."
In 1924 he settled on the Cote d'Azur. At this time he wrote a series of paintings titled "freaks, monsters, makes a caricature of the plots that are derived from the old masters - Rubens, Michelangelo.
In 1925 he finally buried Dadaism. In his article, "Picabia against Dada or return to reason", he writes that "art can not be democratic": "Nature is unfair? Well, so much the better - inequality - the only thing that saves us from the monotony of equality, which leads to deadly boredom.

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In the early 1930's. his style has changed dramatically under the influence of Roman frescoes, which he studied in Catalonia. One critic called this style "syurimpressionizmom" - in these works various ischzobrazheniya superimposed on each other, "creating an impression of three-dimensional space without the use of perspective" (Duchamp).

His artistic feats are not prevented him from conducting an extremely stormy personal and social life. Gertrude Steel, with whom he befriended in those years, called him "Leonardo da Vinci Dada.

In 1935 he wrote a series of neo-classical paintings for exhibition in Chicago. Subsequent years are characterized by extraordinary stylistic diversity of his work: naturalistic, figurative, canvas, using the juxtaposition of images, landscapes, reminiscent of his work Impressionist and fovistskogo periods and finally, the geometric abstraction.

During the Second World War, the spirit of provocation Picabia played a trick on him - after the liberation he experienced some problems. Revenues him greatly diminished, and the first time in his life he was forced to live on the proceeds from the sale of his paintings.

In recent years, he has created works characterized by heavy realism and even a certain academic manner in which he was inspired by erotic pictures 1930.

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In 1945, having become acquainted with the young artists-modernists - Hartung, Brienne, Soulages, Mathieu, Atlanom - Picabia returned to abstraction, and then creates a series of minimalist works, consisting of the points - it would bring abstraction to the limit.

In 1951, the patient Picabia was forced to abandon painting. Ceres 2 years he died.

After so many years after his death, it is difficult to understand what was the irresistible charm of Francis Picabia. Apparently, this was a very brilliant, creative person - a snob, dandy, witty and paradoxical. Not the fact that his main talent was talent of the artist - his work (perhaps with the exception of collages), in my opinion, not particularly convincing. Obviously, he belonged to the category of people who have the talent to live (these were in Moscow, 1960-70 gg.).
However, it is clear that now is an attempt to "roll out" him - Art Market is looking for new or well-forgotten names.

Well, finally, a few aphorisms - Picabia was a worthy successor of Alphonse Allais:

People hung with crosses, reminds me of the cemetery.
Pope - God's counsel. What a pity that his client is dead!
Luxury - no fun, but fun - a luxury.
Paralysis - this is the beginning of wisdom.

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