Francis Picabia

Private Collection, Brussels
Gaetano Benatti, Turin
Galerie Neuendorf, Frankfurt
Kent Fine Art, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1990

Leverkusen, Stästisches Museum Schloss Morsbroich & Eindhoven, Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Francis Picabia, 1967, no. 57
Turin, Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna, Francis Picabia, 1974-75, no. 62
Düsseldorf, Städtischen Kunsthalle & Zürich, Kunsthaus, Francis Picabia, 1983-84, no. 87 (titled Portrait de Madame Picabia and dated 1928-30)
Stockholm, Moderna Museet, Francis Picabia, 1984, no. 79 (titled Portrait de Mme Picabia)
Toyko, The Seibu Museum of Art, Francis Picabia, 1984, no. 44 (dated 1928-30)
Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art & Frankfurt, Galerie Neuendorf, Picabia 1879-1953, 1988, no. 28 (titled Portrait de Madame Picabia and dated circa 1927)
New York, Kent Fine Art, Francis Picabia : Transparences 1924-1932, 1989, no. 6
Paris, Didier Imbert Fine Art, Picabia, 1990, no. 41 (titled Femme)

Maria Lluïsa Borràs, Picabia, Paris, 1985, no. 486, p. 521, illustrated fig. 717, p. 362 (described as détrempe sur carton)

This work is in overall very good condition. The colours of the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, the blue pigment is particularly fresh. The board is sound. The corners of the board are rounded and there is some mostly very minor old frame abrasion along the upper edge and towards the four corners although this is not visible when framed. A close inspection reveals a small nick to the surface of the board just above the figure's head and a thin scratch running horizontally across the outer ring of the black and white swirl in the lower right quadrant. There are a few scattered imperfections to the surface of the board, notably a 0.7cm² 'plug' to the right of the thumb in the lower right quadrant (as visible in the catalogue illustration) and a tiny pinhole between the figure's eyebrows. There is a small remnant of glue towards the centre of the upper edge. Please note that there is a thin framing mount affixed to the reverse of the edges of the board with small nails (the heads of which are not visible when the work is framed).
"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."

This splendid portrait of a woman, executed according to the transparencytechnique that Picabia developed from 1924, has often been considered (and notably labelled as such during several exhibitions and in several books) to be a portrait of Germaine Everling, the artist’s companion and great muse of the Dada years.

The couple first met at the end of 1917. Picabia was still living with his wife Gabrielle in Switzerland, whilst Germaine Everling lived in Paris, separated from her husband. It was only from 1919 onwards, around the time of Picabia’s decisive meeting with Tristan Tzara, that the artist definitively moved in with Germaine. The couple lived the high life without possessing great means, Germaine had to sell her pearl necklace in order to offer Picabia, an insatiable aficionado of racing cars, a magnificent Singer which the artist quickly exchanged for a Mercer belonging to an American collector. “He would pull up to an event in it. Parked alongside the pavement, in front of the building, the Mercer attracted the curiosity of the passing crowds. Picabia spent hours caressing the machine, delighting in its finery and repeating with conviction: It’s the most beautiful car there is! He must have repeated the same phrase after every new purchase, for he acquired 63 cars in the space of 20 years.” (Germaine Everling, L’Anneau de Saturne, 1970, p. 93).

Germaine Everling would be the privileged witness to the earliest meetings of the future Dada members: giving birth to little Lorenzo whilst Picabia and Breton discussed Nietzsche around her, and offering her hospitality to a certain Tristan Tzara, recently arrived from Zürich and totally penniless he remembered his meeting with Picabia in Switzerland a year earlier, “Tristan Tzara woke late in the day, ate his first meal at four o’clock in the afternoon, worked all evening and into the night. He used to cradle the young Lorenzo in his arms with the utmost gentleness, softly repeating: Dada my little one, say Dada… (G. Everling, op. cit., p. 99).

In 1920, Dada arrived in Paris. Assembled around Tzara, the literary group (Breton, Aragon, Soupault) launched their attack on all the old idols. Picabia, one of the new gods, held court, regularly hosting all the young revolutionaries on Sundays in the apartment on rue Emile-Augier. Pierre de Massot concludes his description of Picabia’s salon with a tribute to the “delicate grace, infinite goodness and prodigious erudition of Germaine Everling who hosted everyone with the same kindness, turning Sundays at Picabia’s into the new Tuesdays at Mallarmé’s” (quoted in G. Everling, op. cit., p. 116).

Germaine Everling and Francis Picabia left Paris following the artist’s spilt with Dada, which occurred in 1921 when the group aligned themselves to the Communist Party. Thus began a peripatetic lifestyle with much to-ing and fro-ing between Paris and the suburbs, alternating between staying in squalid hotels in the Batignolles and the refinement of apartments belonging to friends such as Jacques Doucet.

After the success and the scandal of Rêlache in 1924, written and painted by Picabia with music by Satie, Picabia and Germaine Everling left Paris to move to the south of France, settling at the Château de Mai, a sumptuous residence in the heights of Mougins. There the couple were visited by Olga and Pablo Picasso, Jeanne and Fernand Leger, Jean Cocteau, Marcel Duchamp, Jacques Doucet and many others. The dolce vita of the Mediterranean stimulated the inexhaustible imagination of Picabia who was inspired to devise the aesthetics of two great series that dominated his work of the 1920s: the Monsters and then the Transparencies.

The present transparency, above and beyond the assumed identity of the figure represented, is remarkable for the artist’s unusual use of purely abstract motifs such as the white disks which are studded across the composition and the elegant black lines that are superimposed over the central face and the hands which surround it. Francis Picabia and Germaine Everling separated after ten years of artistic and romantic complicity, but they will be forever remembered as the foremost couple of the Dada years in France.