Lot n° 100
Estimation :
300000 - 400000
EUR
Result without fees
Result
: 525 000EUR
Francis PICABIA (1879-1953) Harmas, circa 1928 - Lot 100
Francis PICABIA (1879-1953) Harmas, circa 1928
Francis PICABIA (1879-1953)
Harmas, circa 1928
Mixed media on cardboard, signed lower right
106 x 75.5 cm
A certificate from Pierre Calté, for the Picabia Committee, dated March 18, 2015, will be given to the buyer.
NO LIVE BIDS WILL BE ACCEPTED FOR THIS LOT
PLEASE CONTACT THE FIRM DIRECTLY
Provenance :
acquired from the Théophile Briant gallery in the early 1930s, then by descent
Exhibitions :
- Francis Picabia, Galerie Th. BRIANT, Paris, October 26 to November 15, 1928, no. 37
- EXHIBITION Francis PICABIA TRENTE ANS DE PEINTURE, chez Léonce Rosenberg, Paris, December 9 - 31
1930, n° 28
Bibliography :
- G. de P(awlowski), Une exposition Francis Picabia ( 32 rue de Berri), Le Journal October 27, 1928, p. 5
- W. A. Camfield, B. Calté, C. Clements, A. Pierre, Francis Picabia, Catalogue Raisonné, volume III,
1927-1939, Fonds Mercator, 2019, n° 1052, p. 188
Francis Picabia has been constantly renewing himself since his debut at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1899.
Impressionist" period came to an end in 1909, the year he married Gabrielle Buffet. This young
avant-garde musician introduced him to modern art, Picabia sought his own language and approached
non-figuration.
In 1913, he exhibited at the Armory Show in New York and spent almost six months there. He was deeply
marked by the city, marking the start of his "mechanomorphic" period.
After the war, Francis Picabia, separated from his wife, became close to the Dadaists with Germaine Everling. In
1928, he abandoned the "derision of painting", a turnaround that coincided with the arrival on the scene of a new companion, Olga Mohler.
companion, Olga Mohler. The artist imagined "transparencies", those seductive superimpositions of images,
often borrowed from ancient painting.
Picabia exhibited Harmas at the Galerie Théophile Briant in 1928, under no. 37.
In 1929, on the occasion of another Picabia exhibition at the same Parisian gallery, the film critic
Gaston Ravel, in an article entitled "exposition de peinture", described these transparencies as "surimpressionnisme
"in reference to the simultaneity of superimposed film images.
As early as 1928, Léonce Rosenberg commissioned Francis Picabia to decorate his wife's bedroom
his wife's bedroom in his apartment at 75 rue de Longchamp in Paris. The famous art dealer devoted a retrospective
retrospective "Thirty Years of Painting" in December 1930, featuring Harmas under no. 28. In the preface to the
catalog, Francis Picabia confides:
"My present aesthetic stems from the boredom caused me by the spectacle of paintings that appear to me as if frozen in an immobile surface.
frozen in a motionless surface, far removed from human things.
This third dimension, not made of light and shadow, these transparencies with their corners of oblivion
allow me to express myself in the likeness of my inner will. When I lay the first stone
stone, it's under my painting, not on it. Modern means of activity are barbaric. What I want
want a grander expression, with a sure hand and implacable bravery, without the fear of attacking
to attack oneself. I want a painting where all my instincts can give free rein".
And Léonce Rosenberg replied: "By associating the visible with the invisible, you have furnished space and, through an orderly interplay of contrasting forms, you have created a work of art.
an orderly interplay of contrasting, rhythmic forms, creating a dynamism thanks to which your work, now mobile, can accompany the march of time.
mobile, can now accompany the march of time."
In his "transparencies", Francis Picabia superimposes different images, often based on references
to his own creations.
In the work we present here, two works by Sandro Botticelli, a Portrait of a Young Man
in London's National Gallery and the hands of the Young Man Holding a Medal in Florence's Uffizi Gallery.
in Florence's Uffizi Gallery, are superimposed with leaves, vines, arabesques and isolated
signs. In the center of the sheet, a cat's head with green eyes reveals itself to the attentive observer.
Picabia associated works from this period with often enigmatic titles. Harma is a species of
butterfly. Harmas also means, in Provençal, a stony, barren expanse left to decay.
entomologist Jean-Henri Fabre (1823-1915) named the property he acquired in Provence in
1879. The property and its garden have belonged to the Museum national d'histoire naturelle since 1922.
Acquired in the early 1930s from Théophile Briant by the current owner's family
since the exhibition "Francis Picabia Trente ans de peinture" at the home of
Léonce Rosenberg in 1930.
Expert : CABINET MARECHAUX. Madame Elisabeth MARECHAUX - 30 rue Vaneau 75007 Paris - 01 44 42 90 10
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