234 - Francis Picabia (French, 1879–1953)

Francis Picabia (French, 1879–1953) Transparence, c. 1932–1933 Untitled Pencil, charcoal, and ink on paper. Signed in pencil. H 35.6, W 30.5 cm. Provenance: Collection of Bénédicte Joannon (1908–1999), Rhône, passed down through the family. Picabia. Transparence. Pencil, charcoal, and ink on paper. c. 1932–1933. Certificate from the Picabia Committee dated April 23, 2026. PICABIA’S “TRANSPARENCES” The “Transparences” are among the most iconic works by an artist who described himself as a “painter of all genres” and who made it a point of honor throughout his life never to allow himself to be confined by a style, a genre, a group, or a dealer. Created between 1927 and 1932, the “Transparences” illustrate Picabia’s break with the Dada movement, which he had helped pioneer. The term first appeared during an exhibition at Théophile Briant’s gallery in October 1928. The superimposition of multiple images—taking as their starting point classical figures by Botticelli or Piero della Francesca, drawing inspiration from the Bible or mythology, and linking antiquity with the modern era within a dreamlike universe—led Marcel Duchamp to remark that they “express the sensation of the third dimension without the aid of perspective.” Léonce Rosenberge wrote to him: “The Transparences are the union of the visible and the invisible. It is this notion of time, combined with that of space, that precisely constitutes the doctrine of your art. Beyond the instant, toward the infinite—such is your ideal.” At the end of 1929, as he began work on *Judith*, Picabia shifted his source of inspiration and immersed himself in Peter Landow’s collection of photographs, *Natur und Kultur: Das Weib, 120 Aufnahmen*, published in Berlin in 1925. These photographs, whose captions detail the origins of the women depicted as well as the photographer’s notes, fascinated the artist, “who sought to recreate the poses and theatrical lighting of these models in many of his works” (Francis Picabia, Catalogue Raisonné, vol. III, Mercator Collection, p. 59). Picabia, of course, does not settle for a slavish reproduction of the photograph but reinterprets it in the service of his own work. Playing with the models’ androgyny, a Swedish woman with an athletic build thus becomes a man. Here, the pose of the model on the right side of the composition recalls that of an Australian woman on plate 21 of Landow’s book. Discovered hidden behind a canvas from the 1907 Prix de Rome, Marcel Féguide, this drawing was part of the estate of Bénédicte Joannon (1908–1999), a music lover and the daughter of an industrialist and politician from the Loire region. It has been very precisely dated to the years 1932–1933 by the Picabia Committee. This was yet another period of upheaval for Picabia: first, a romantic breakup, as he began his relationship with Olga, who would become his last wife; and finally, an artistic break with the adoption of figurative painting, which would later pave the way for Pop Art. Aymeric Rouillac and Brice Langlois