Francis Picabia

Picabia studied art at the École des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. After an early Impressionist period, he moved towards Cubism and, in 1912, Orphism. In 1911 he met Marcel Duchamp, with whom he developed a lasting friendship. In 1912 he exhibited with the Section d’Or. In 1913 he travelled to New York for the Armory Show. In 1915 he returned to the city, where, together with Duchamp and Man Ray, he helped establish Dada through performances and publications. During this period he produced his machinist paintings and contributed to the journal 291, published by Alfred Stieglitz. In 1916 he settled in Barcelona, where he founded the journal 391, first published in 1917. He subsequently took part in Dada activities in Zurich and Paris and developed his Transparencies series, before rejecting the movement as no longer capable of surprising him. In 1925 he moved to Mougins, near Cannes, where he undertook commercial work during the difficult war years. After returning to Paris following the Second World War, he continued to experiment with abstract painting. In 1951, a paralysing form of arteriosclerosis forced him to stop painting. He died in Paris two years later.