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Lot Essay
The Comité Picabia has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
At the beginning of the 1940s, Picabia met Jean Moral, figurehead of Nouvelle Vision, a photographic movement promoting both a realist and modernist esthetics, characterized by a naturalist iconography and dynamic framings. Under Moral's influence and in reaction to the darkness of the war, Picabia produced a series of solar paintings on the theme of the nude, depicting hedonistic women soaking up the sun in dreamy landscapes or resting in cosy kitsch interiors.
Picabia enjoyed that new image of women, conveyed at this time by Nouvelle Vision photographs published chiefly in erotic magazines. He often used certain snapshots as direct inspiration for his paintings, such as Nu devant un paysage (fig. 1), painted after a photograph published in Paris Plaisir in 1933 (fig. 2). He would sometimes choose two photographs and juxtapose them on the canvas, producing a sort of painted collage.
Painted circa 1940, Portrait de Dorothy B. belongs to this series, the sitter's nudity being suggested by her bare neck and shoulders. Even if no specific photograph has been identified as starting point for this work, the green setting framing the woman's face as well as the harsh lighting, creating a clear-cut play of shades, strongly suggest the photographic imagery of this period.
(fig. 1) Francis Picabia, Nu devant un paysage, 1938. Musée Magnelli, Vallauris.
(fig. 2) "Mont d'Amour," Paris Plaisir, no. 157, August 1933.
At the beginning of the 1940s, Picabia met Jean Moral, figurehead of Nouvelle Vision, a photographic movement promoting both a realist and modernist esthetics, characterized by a naturalist iconography and dynamic framings. Under Moral's influence and in reaction to the darkness of the war, Picabia produced a series of solar paintings on the theme of the nude, depicting hedonistic women soaking up the sun in dreamy landscapes or resting in cosy kitsch interiors.
Picabia enjoyed that new image of women, conveyed at this time by Nouvelle Vision photographs published chiefly in erotic magazines. He often used certain snapshots as direct inspiration for his paintings, such as Nu devant un paysage (fig. 1), painted after a photograph published in Paris Plaisir in 1933 (fig. 2). He would sometimes choose two photographs and juxtapose them on the canvas, producing a sort of painted collage.
Painted circa 1940, Portrait de Dorothy B. belongs to this series, the sitter's nudity being suggested by her bare neck and shoulders. Even if no specific photograph has been identified as starting point for this work, the green setting framing the woman's face as well as the harsh lighting, creating a clear-cut play of shades, strongly suggest the photographic imagery of this period.
(fig. 1) Francis Picabia, Nu devant un paysage, 1938. Musée Magnelli, Vallauris.
(fig. 2) "Mont d'Amour," Paris Plaisir, no. 157, August 1933.