Picabia

Pages ahead of the market

It's Art Basel Miami Beach time again. Today's daily fair edition of The Art Newspaper (PDF) has short article on the resurgence of interest in artist Francis Picabia (1887–1953). Several galleries, the article notes, are showing Picabia's work at the fair. While the gallerists themselves suggest, "It kind of just happened," and "I think when you have changes in the market, people re-evaluate why they were buying things in the first place," I'd posit a different reason for the new-found interest: MIT Press' publication of two Picabia books last fall.

The books -- one a critical study and the other a volume of the artist's writings -- were both critically acclaimed, showing up on a number of "Best Of 2007" lists, and both, I believe, were popular sellers. There's no doubt in my mind that the resurgence started with the books' publication and is just now filtering through to the market. Too often, book publication is overlooked (sometimes intentionally so) as a driver of the art market and of popular interest in particular artists and art movements. It's made even more interesting, I think, when that publication originates at a scholarly press. The divide between art scholarship and the art market is usually illustrated as much wider than it actually is and I have seen little frank conversation about this fact in the art media. Picabia at Art Basel Miami Beach would have seemed an obvious and interesting time to try.

Hol Art Books

Flitting in turn from impressionism to fauvism to cubism and then to dadaism, Picabia, creator of mechanical paintings, of monsters, of transparencies, was a permanent challenge to art dealers, collectors, scholars and critics who always try to stick a label on him.

Francis Picabia at the wheel of one of his many automobiles.

Dadart and the Centre du XX^e Siècle are selling a reprint of Picabia's famous Dada periodical, 391, with its critical apparatus, in two volumes, for 40 euros .

In October 1964, the Editions du Temps published the first comprehensive monograph on Francis Picabia, now out of print. On December 4th of that year, friends and relatives of Francis gathered around the author, Michel Sanouillet, at the Galerie Carré, to sign the first copy. Among them were: René Clair, Max Ernst, Gabrielle Buffet-Picaba, Olga Picabia, Jeannine Bailly-Cowell Picabia, Jean et Marguerite Arp, Simone Breton-Collinet, Robert Valançay, Rodrigo de Zayas, Maurice Henry, Frédéric Deloffre, Camille Bryen, André Dunoyer de Segonzac, Jean-Jacques Lebel.