Francis Picabia

Sale: Salle Rossini, Paris, 30th November 2004, lot 104
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Nice, Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain, Picabia et le Côte d'Azur, 1991, no. 96, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

The board is stable. There is an uneven varnish to the surface of the work and there are areas which fluoresce unusually under UV light to the upper left quadrant, to the figure's legs, the lower right corner and to the blue background, most probably due to the artist's materials. There are some further areas of fluorescence, possibly retouching, to the left of the sitter's shoulder and along the lower edge just below the signature, visible under UV light. Apart from a nailhead-sized spot of paint loss to the centre between the figure's arms, this work is in good condition.
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
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."

The present work was painted within two years of Picabia's return to the port of Golfe-Juan on the Côte d'Azur in June 1940. He had recently married his long-term companion Olga Mohler and was beginning to settle back into his life and work as well as possible despite the upheavals of war. As he had done so many times before in his career, Picabia undertook a radical development in his painting, predominantly executing pictures of women, many of them nude and in seductive poses, in a new and highly realistic style. Research has shown that these paintings were directly based on photographs found in magazines and on postcards that date from the 1930s and 1940s. Their use of popular imagery 'hails them as precursors in subject, style and content to the phenomenon of Pop Art during the 1960s' (William A. Camfield, Francis Picabia, His Art, Life and Times, Princeton, 1979, p. 257).

Femme au bouquet portrays a seated woman seductively covered in only a blanket staring enticingly out towards the viewer. Given the context in which it was painted, this work could not be further away from the grey, catastrophic events taking place across Europe between 1939 and 1945. However Picabia was not a conventional artist, rejecting the consistency of developing a particular style that would make his work immediately identifiable, as a result he would not have changed his style or subject matter regardless of Europe's current circumstances.