Francis Picabia

Léonce Rosenberg (Galerie de l’Effort Moderne), Paris (acquired from the artist)

Sale: Ader, Picard & Tajan, Paris, 7th June 1973, lot 63

Galerie 1900-2000, Paris

Maurice & Rose-Marie Weinberg, Paris (acquired by 1976)

Private Collection, New York

Rachel Adler Fine Art, New York

Galería Guillermo de Osma, Madrid

Private Collection, Spain (Sold: Goya Subastas, Madrid, 27th November 2013, lot 511)

Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Paris, Grand Palais, Francis Picabia, 1976, no. 188, illustrated in the catalogue

Paris, Didier Imbert Fine Arts, Picabia, 1990, no. 42, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Paris, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Passions privées, 1995-96, no. A24-1, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Berlin, Berlinische Galerie, Martin Gropius Bau, Age of Modernism - Art of the Twentieth Century, 1997, no. 359, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes, Colección Arte XX, 2008, no. 12, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

William A. Camfield, Francis Picabia, Princeton, 1979, illustrated no. 311

Maria-Lluïsa Borràs, Picabia, Spain, 1985, no. 515, fig. 740, illustrated p. 366

Gérard Durozoi (ed.), Dictionnaire de l’art moderne et contemporain, Paris, 1992, illustrated p. 493

Christian Derouet, Francis Picabia, lettres à Léonce Rosenberg 1929-1940, Paris, 2000, p. 137

Arnauld Pierre, Francis Picabia: la peinture sans aura, Paris, 2002, no. 100, illustrated p. 235

The panel is sound. The support is slightly bowed with a few minor cracks along the upper and lower framing edges and to the upper and lower left corners, which are intrinsic to the medium. There is no evidence of retouching under ultra-violet light. There is a very slight abrasion underneath the flowers in the upper left quadrant. This work is in very good condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration, although slightly brighter in the original.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Lunaris, painted circa 1929, is an exceptional example of Picabia's celebrated Transparance paintings. Following his experimentation with Dadaism and anti-art activities of the early decades of the 20th century, in the late 1920s Picabia turned towards a form of ‘renaissance’, creating figurative images underpinned by a Classical beauty. The resulting body of work combine overlaying images into compositions of great elegance and harmony. William A. Camfield wrote about the genesis of this style: ‘Picabia’s interest in the concept and techniques of transparency was not a sudden development. Ultimately it derived from preoccupations with simultaneity during the epoch of Cubism and Orphism; more recently he had experimented with simultaneity/transparency in the film Entr’acte and in a number of the monster paintings of ca. 1927. But in 1928 his work evolved into the early mature paintings of a type which became known as “the transparencies” – a style so named for its multiple layers of transparent images, although it was also characterized by pervasive moods of wistfulness and melancholy, and by extensive reference to art of the past’ (W. A. Camfield, op. cit., p. 229).

Discussing the present work in the context of the Transparence series of the late 1920s, Camfield wrote: ‘In other works of ca. 1928-1929, Lunaris, for example, the fine-grained plywood ground and pervasive blue tonality, the melancholic faces and poetic title all evoke such a delicate reverie that intellectual considerations about content seldom intrude on the experience of the spectator. […] Lunaris has not been identified in early exhibitions, but it appears in Olga Picabia’s album as a work of 1928 from the collection of Léonce Rosenberg. The spiralling, tendril-like forms in it are most common in works of ca. 1927-1928 […] but also appear in 1929 [fig. 1] along with the Botticelli-inspired faces’ (ibid., p. 232). Picabia’s paintings and drawings of this period were exhibited at Chez Fabre in Cannes and at the Galerie Théophile Briant in Paris in 1929. Léonce Rosenberg greatly admired the Transparences and as a result he offered Picabia an arrangement with his gallery and commissioned several paintings for his home.

Picabia's intention in seeking inspiration from Old Masters is, however, not entirely known, as he did not follow the general trend of rappel à l’ordre, which influenced much of the art produced in the 1920s, following the destruction of World War I. His intent was probably fuelled by his Dadaist tendencies to rejoice in the illogical and to subvert the traditionally accepted notions in art. In discussing Picabia’s take on Old Masters, critics have often compared his paintings to those of Pablo Picasso, characterising Picabia as his follower. Maria Lluïsa Borràs, however, argued that it was Picabia who pioneered this style: ‘Picabia was in fact anticipating by over fifteen years the Picasso who was to take as his theme works by Cranach, Altdorfer, Poussin and Courbet – or the Picasso of the fifties who, before the adoring eyes of the specialists, was to transform the works of El Greco, Delacroix, Velázquez and even Manet in ways not fundamentally different from that used by Picabia in the twenties’ (M. L. Borràs, op. cit., p. 292).