Francis Picabia: Catalogue Raisonne Volume IV (1940-1953)

This publication is the fourth volume of an important catalogue raisonne of the work of Francis Picabia

This publication, the fourth volume of an important catalogue raisonne 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.