Francis Picabia

Andrew & Geraldine Fuller, Fort Worth & New York (acquired by 1968)
The Estate of Geraldine Spreckels Fuller, 1998
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (bequested from the above in 1999 and sold: Sotheby's, New York, May 4, 2011, lot 133)
Acquired at the above sale

(Possibly) Kunsthalle Basel, Francis Picabia, 1946
Southampton, New York, Parrish Art Museum, n.d.

This painting is in very good and healthy condition. It is safely installed in its frame. The paint layer has probably never been cleaned but it may have been varnished. There is what appears to be a thin white scratch in the upper left quadrant and a possibly milky blemish in the top right corner of the lower left quadrant. The only noticeable damage or restoration however is a roughly horiztonal scratch in the lower center approximately three inches from the bottom edge which runs for approximately four inches. This scratch has no filling but some retouching color in it. There is slight fram abrasion around the edges and some of the red gesso layer from the frame is transferred to the painting, along the bottom edge particularly. In general the painting is in very good condition. The above condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Executed almost thirty years after the Dada and abstract works of Picabia's youth, Abstrait is symptomatic of what William Camfield rightly terms "the ultimate synthesis" (William Camfield, Francis Picabia: His Art, Life and Times, Princeton, 1979, p. 260). The formal, physical, almost sculptural experiments of this period in effect bear witness to the intensity of the preoccupations and aspirations of a painter who conceives of artistic productivity in conjunction with personal iconography. "Picabia conveys the potency of these underlying meanings, as personal as they are universal, through a repertoire of ideographic signs, archaic symbols and archetypal images" (cited in Francis Picabia, singulier idéal (exhibition catalogue), Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris, Paris, 2002, p. 378). The current work embodies the remarkable diversity of shapes, colors and tones which inhabit these sophisticated later works. The figuration of his earlier paintings gives way here to an embrace of abstraction and recognition of its potential for personal expression—a realization which would dominate the Abstract Expressionists working in New York during the subsequent decade.

In an interview he gave to the Journal des Arts in 1945, Picabia explained his new motivations. He declared, "I must know what painting thinks, what painting feels, which means feeling 'colors,' loving 'lines,' living 'shapes'... and all this is the result of a long history. It is the result of a perpetual personal quest related to the work of an artisan which is also that of an artist which leads me to the point where, from a new 'technique,' a new 'style' emerges" (quoted in William Camfield, op. cit., p. 263). To the question "What does one see in your current works?" he replied: "Everyone sees something different and may even see something else each day according to his state of mind... each painting is for me a drama, passing through each stage of my previous creations, superimposed shapes and transparencies, to continue to aim to reach that elusive but ecstatic moment where I know that I have grasped the unattainable, the real" (cited in Francis Picabia, singulier idéal (exhibition catalogue), op. cit., 384).