Francis Picabia

 (1879 – 1953)

Melibee, 1931  

Oil on canvas  

77 x 51 1/8 in. / 195.5 x 130 cm.  

Signed lower left  

Provenance:  

Hand Neuendorf, Hamburg  Kent Fine Art, New York  Waddington Galleries, London  

Notes:  

As Borras notes, the image of the woman’s head is taken from the Madonna of Piero della Francesca’s Virgin and Child with saints and Federico de Montefeltro. The title,Melibee, refers to the pagan shepherdess in Virgil’s First Eclogue. 

Exhibited:  

Exposition Francis Picabia. Galerie Georges Bernheim, Paris, 1931  

Francis Picabia. Salas Pablo Ruiz Picasso, Madrid; Fundacio Caixa de Pensions, Barcelona, 1985  

Picabia 1879 – 1953. National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh; Galerie Neuendorf, Frankfurt, 1988

Literature:  

Exposition Francis Picabia. Paris: Galerie Georges Bernheim, 1931, no. 11.  

Auzias de Turenne, Solange. Francis Picabia. Madrid: Salas Pablo Ruiz Picasso, 1985, ill p. 177, no. 110.  

Borras, Maria Lluisa. Picabia. New York: Rizzoli, 1985, no. 582, fig. 750, pp. 339, 367, 525.  Camfield William A. Francis Picabia: His Art, His Life, His Times. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1979, ill. p. 242, no. 349.  

Freeman, Judi. et al. Picabia 1879 – 1953. Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, 1988, ill. p. 91, no. 36.

Francis Picabia. New York: Kent Fine Art, 1989, p. 64, ill. no. 17.