Francis Picabia

"We should mistrust

picturesque people

we should mistrust

old master painting

we should even mistrust painting

painted without mistrust"

—Francis Picabia (1879-1953)

Michael Werner Gallery, New York is pleased to present Francis Picabia – Women: Works on Paper 1902-1950, an exhibition of over 40 works on paper spanning 50 years of the iconoclastic French artist’s career.

Gaining notoriety as a leader in the Dada movement only to later reject the movement, Picabia’s contemporary Marcel Duchamp described the artist’s work as a “kaleidoscopic series of art experiences.” Always a step ahead of his peers, Picabia produced an extraordinarily diverse body of work that deeply impacted countless generations of artists.

Art critic Dave Hickey writes, “more engaged with making works of art than with constructing an oeuvre or articulating an ideology, Picabia wore out styles like a baby wears out shoes.” Regularly shifting styles, the artist’s interest in rendering the figure remained steadfast. Culling imagery from sources as diverse as ancient Roman sculpture and paintings by Ingres to contemporary magazine photographs and Hollywood studio portraits, this exhibition explores Picabia’s images of women, a classical subject the artist continually reinterpreted over his career.