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拍品专文
By 1951, Francis Picabia was nearing the end of a long and dazzlingly diverse career. Beginning with his earliest works, Picabia had explored a range of different styles and techniques, from neo-Impressionism to Cubism, through Dada, Surrealism and Abstraction, before returning to figuration. Throughout this process of relentless transvaluation, something important endured: Picabia was a master of appropriation and bricolage. Far ahead of his time, Picabia found bold ways to reimagine and incorporate existing text and imagery in entirely new works of art. Ilma’s Paris Horizons showcases the artist’s most daring and playful powers of association—pulling from disparate centuries and media, Picabia condenses layers of reference and self-reference into a dynamic but unified composition.
Thick, swooping lines of black ink bend and curve into one another in a mass of seemingly abstract forms. A closed eye at the upper center of the page and the simplified curly hair and lips of a woman at the lower right are recognizable among the interlocking shapes. Two 1951 oil paintings, Tableau vivant (W.A. Camfield et al., no. 2108) and Jeudi (W.A. Camfield et al., no. 2113), bear identical central forms to those seen in the present drawing. Given the rough character of the former’s known preparatory sketch (W.A. Camfield et al., no. 2107), it is likely Ilma’s Paris Horizon was executed alongside or soon after these oils. But, this chain of reference runs deeper. As argued by Picabia scholar Candace Clements, the imagery of Tableau vivant and Jeudi—and by extension Ilma’s Paris Horizons—was appropriated from a 1926 book of Romanesque art and architecture owned by the artist (C. Clements, “Ce que j’aime peindre!: Retour sur les dernières oeuvres de Picabia,” in Les Cahiers du Musée national d’art moderne, Paris, 2013, pp. 84-99). Picabia was struck by the blurry images illustrating an angel flanking Christ on the curving apse of the Catalonian Church of Sant Climent de Taüll, as well as a photograph demonstrating a medieval decorative technique included in the book. He transformed the angel’s haloed face from the medieval fresco into the encircled shut eye of Tableau vivant and blithely re-ornamented the medieval decorative element to include hair and lips. The 11th Century artwork, translated and flattened through the modern lens of photography, is further transformed by the artist’s keen imagination.
In and around these forms, Picabia embellishes the present composition with fine lines of text, added by the hand of his wife, Olga Picabia, under his direction. They bend and change direction across the page, alternating between neat and tightly-packed ribbons of words and airier passages that coalesce into loose patterns. Together, they form a who’s-who and what’s-what of Franco-American cultural life. The names of iconic Parisian mainstays like Les Deux Magots and Café de Flore find themselves listed alongside Pan American Airlines and Western Union. Gallerist René Drouin makes an appearance in this tapestry, as does Hermès. Larger than the rest of these inscriptions, Picabia titles his work Ilma’s Paris Horizons. The peculiar name references a little-known monthly newsletter written by an American journalist, youth organizer, and socialite named Viola Ilma. While originally intended for an American audience, “Ilma’s Paris Grapevine” was picked up by the Paris-Presse and achieved a modest but notable French circulation as the young traveler gushed about the rich social and cultural life of post-war Paris. Reminiscing in her autobiography, Ilma explained: “I was under a Gallic spell which to this day hasn’t been broken… It was a happy whirl” (The Political Virgin, New York, 1958, p. 141).
The corresponding whirl of notable names that flowed through Ilma’s newsletter must have resonated with Picabia’s Dada and proto-pop sensibilities. Here, he gives both the banal and the unique a rhythmic substance, leveraging Ilma’s newsletter as if he were illuminating a manuscript, not for the 11th, but the 20th Century. Together, by way of Picabia’s ability to masterfully associate and transform, both the Medieval and contemporary, high and low, painted and written, come together in the dynamic and compelling composition of Ilma’s Paris Horizons.
Thick, swooping lines of black ink bend and curve into one another in a mass of seemingly abstract forms. A closed eye at the upper center of the page and the simplified curly hair and lips of a woman at the lower right are recognizable among the interlocking shapes. Two 1951 oil paintings, Tableau vivant (W.A. Camfield et al., no. 2108) and Jeudi (W.A. Camfield et al., no. 2113), bear identical central forms to those seen in the present drawing. Given the rough character of the former’s known preparatory sketch (W.A. Camfield et al., no. 2107), it is likely Ilma’s Paris Horizon was executed alongside or soon after these oils. But, this chain of reference runs deeper. As argued by Picabia scholar Candace Clements, the imagery of Tableau vivant and Jeudi—and by extension Ilma’s Paris Horizons—was appropriated from a 1926 book of Romanesque art and architecture owned by the artist (C. Clements, “Ce que j’aime peindre!: Retour sur les dernières oeuvres de Picabia,” in Les Cahiers du Musée national d’art moderne, Paris, 2013, pp. 84-99). Picabia was struck by the blurry images illustrating an angel flanking Christ on the curving apse of the Catalonian Church of Sant Climent de Taüll, as well as a photograph demonstrating a medieval decorative technique included in the book. He transformed the angel’s haloed face from the medieval fresco into the encircled shut eye of Tableau vivant and blithely re-ornamented the medieval decorative element to include hair and lips. The 11th Century artwork, translated and flattened through the modern lens of photography, is further transformed by the artist’s keen imagination.
In and around these forms, Picabia embellishes the present composition with fine lines of text, added by the hand of his wife, Olga Picabia, under his direction. They bend and change direction across the page, alternating between neat and tightly-packed ribbons of words and airier passages that coalesce into loose patterns. Together, they form a who’s-who and what’s-what of Franco-American cultural life. The names of iconic Parisian mainstays like Les Deux Magots and Café de Flore find themselves listed alongside Pan American Airlines and Western Union. Gallerist René Drouin makes an appearance in this tapestry, as does Hermès. Larger than the rest of these inscriptions, Picabia titles his work Ilma’s Paris Horizons. The peculiar name references a little-known monthly newsletter written by an American journalist, youth organizer, and socialite named Viola Ilma. While originally intended for an American audience, “Ilma’s Paris Grapevine” was picked up by the Paris-Presse and achieved a modest but notable French circulation as the young traveler gushed about the rich social and cultural life of post-war Paris. Reminiscing in her autobiography, Ilma explained: “I was under a Gallic spell which to this day hasn’t been broken… It was a happy whirl” (The Political Virgin, New York, 1958, p. 141).
The corresponding whirl of notable names that flowed through Ilma’s newsletter must have resonated with Picabia’s Dada and proto-pop sensibilities. Here, he gives both the banal and the unique a rhythmic substance, leveraging Ilma’s newsletter as if he were illuminating a manuscript, not for the 11th, but the 20th Century. Together, by way of Picabia’s ability to masterfully associate and transform, both the Medieval and contemporary, high and low, painted and written, come together in the dynamic and compelling composition of Ilma’s Paris Horizons.