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Lot Essay
The Comité Picabia has confirmed the authenticity of this work which is sold with a photo-certificate.
Painted in mid-1920s the present work belongs to Picabia's highly inventive series of works known as the 'monster' paintings. These highly radical compositions depicted deliberately distorted popular or traditional subjects. They were painted to shock and appealed to the tastes of the avant-garde. The main thematic trends in these works were lovers, landscapes, and women, influenced either by the society people Picabia met or themes treated by the Old Masters such as the three graces. In the present work a bather is portrayed in brilliant, clashing colours using Ripolin paint applied with great verve. Commenting on his painting in 1926, Picabia reveals the irreverent spirit that governed these compositions: 'Painting, for me, resides in the pleasure of invention. What would give me the most pleasure would be to be able to invent without painting' (W.A. Camfield, Francis Picabia, His Art, Life and Times, Princeton, 1979, p. 217).
In 1925 Picabia moved to Mougins in the South of France with Germaine Everling, where they started work on building their new home, the Château de Mai. The new house became a focus for artists visiting the South of France and Picabia and Germaine played host to Picasso, Léger, Eluard, Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau, Marcel Duchamp, Brancusi and René Clair. Living in his château and playing on his yacht, Picabia played host during these years to an endless series of parties and intellectual gatherings. Alongside his marriage to Germaine, he had fallen in love with the guardian of his son Lorenzo, Olga Mohler, whom he would later marry, and at the same time was indulging in an affair with the young daughter of Benjamin Guinness.
Painted in mid-1920s the present work belongs to Picabia's highly inventive series of works known as the 'monster' paintings. These highly radical compositions depicted deliberately distorted popular or traditional subjects. They were painted to shock and appealed to the tastes of the avant-garde. The main thematic trends in these works were lovers, landscapes, and women, influenced either by the society people Picabia met or themes treated by the Old Masters such as the three graces. In the present work a bather is portrayed in brilliant, clashing colours using Ripolin paint applied with great verve. Commenting on his painting in 1926, Picabia reveals the irreverent spirit that governed these compositions: 'Painting, for me, resides in the pleasure of invention. What would give me the most pleasure would be to be able to invent without painting' (W.A. Camfield, Francis Picabia, His Art, Life and Times, Princeton, 1979, p. 217).
In 1925 Picabia moved to Mougins in the South of France with Germaine Everling, where they started work on building their new home, the Château de Mai. The new house became a focus for artists visiting the South of France and Picabia and Germaine played host to Picasso, Léger, Eluard, Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau, Marcel Duchamp, Brancusi and René Clair. Living in his château and playing on his yacht, Picabia played host during these years to an endless series of parties and intellectual gatherings. Alongside his marriage to Germaine, he had fallen in love with the guardian of his son Lorenzo, Olga Mohler, whom he would later marry, and at the same time was indulging in an affair with the young daughter of Benjamin Guinness.