Francis Picabia citations (29 citations)

Source: Quote in Picabia's letter to Tristan Tzara, Summer 1919; as cited in TaTa Dada: The Real Life and Celestial Adventures of Tristan Tzara, Marius Hentea, MIT Press, 12 Sep 2014, p. 151

“FRANCIS PICABIA
is an imbecile, an idiot, a pickpocket!!!
1921
BUT
He saved Arp from constipation!
The first mechanical work was created
by madam Tzara the Day she put
little Tristan into the world, however she
didn't know it
funny girl
Francis Picabia
is an imbecilic Spanish professor
who has never been dada
FRANCIS PICABIA IS NOTHING
FRANCIS PICABIS likes the morality of idiots
Arp's binocle is Tristan’s testicle
FRANCIS PICABIS IS NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!
But Arp was Dada before Dada.”

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Francis Picabia

Quote of Picabia in his 'Manifesto, 1921'; as cited in Manifesto: A Century of Isms, ed. Mary Ann Caws, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001, p 319
1920's

“It is not a recognisable scene [his two paintings 'Dances at the spring', 1912 - Picabia painted the motion and the excitement of a peasant dance while he was on his honeymoon in the countryside of Italy; one version is lost]. There is no dancer, no spring, no light, no perspective, nothing other than the visible clue of the sentiments I am trying to express... I would draw your attention to a song of colours, which will bring out for others the joyful sensations and feelings inspired in me on those summer days when I found myself somewhere in the country near the Italian border, where there was a spring in a wonderful garden. A photograph of that spring and that garden would in now way look like my painting 'Dance at a spring' I was shown for the first time at the w:Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1912.”

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Francis Picabia

As quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 200
1920's

“.. giving plastic reality to inner states of the mind.”

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Francis Picabia

1910's

“The aim of art is to get us to dream, just like music, for it expresses a mood projected onto the canvas, which arouses identical sensations in the viewer.”

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Francis Picabia

two short quotes of Picabia, in 'A Paris painter', by Hapgood, published in 'The Globe and Commercial Advertiser', 20 Febr. 1913, p. 8
1910's

“The Cubists want to cover Dada with snow; that may surprise you, but it is so, they want to empty the snow from their pipe to bury DaDa.
Are you sure?
Positively sure, the facts are revealed by grotesque mouths. They think that Dada can prevent them from practicing this odious trade: Selling art expensively.
Art costs more than sausages, more than women, more than everything.
Art is visible like God (see Saint-Sulpice).
Art is a pharmaceutical product for imbeciles.
The table turns thanks to spirit; the paintings and other works of arts are like strong-box tables, the spirit is inside and becomes more and more
inspired according to the auction prices.
Farce, farce, farce, farce, farce, my dear friends.”

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Francis Picabia

In 'DADA manifesto 1920'; as quoted in Manifesto: A Century of Isms, ed. Mary Ann Caws, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001, nr. 9.16 Francis Picabia, p 318
1920's

“Udnie – I see Again in Memory my Dear Udnie' is no more the portrait of a young girl than 'Edtaonisl' (counterpart of his work 'Udnie'] is the image of a prelate, as we ordinarily conceive of them. They are [both] memories of America, evocations of over there which, subtly set down like musical chords, become representative of an idea, a nostalgia, a fleeting impression.”

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Francis Picabia

'Udnie – I see Again in Memory my Dear Udnie' is the title of a painting, he made in 1913; a memory of the dances performed by Stasia Napierkowska on the ship to New York, to visit the w:Armory Show, where Picabia was presented in 1913 as a 'leading Cubist painter'
1910's
Source: 'Ecrits: vol. 1', 1913 - 1920, Picabia, Belfond, Paris, p. 26

“I do not consider myself a Cubist either because I have come to the conclusion that cubes are not always made for expressing the thought of the brain and of the feeling of the spirit... I capture all these impressions [the visual sensations, Picabia sensed in the modern city] without any hurry to transfer to the canvas. I let them rest in my brain and then, when I'm visited by the spirit of creation, I improvise my paintings just as a musician improvises his music.”

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Francis Picabia

1910's
Source: 'How I see New York', in 'The New York American', New York 30 March 1913, p. 11

“Splendid, it has done me enormous good to finally see and read something in Switzerland that isn't bullshit. All of it is very nice, it is really something; your manifesto expresses every philosophy seeking truth, when there is no truth, only convention.”

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Francis Picabia

In a letter to Tristan Tzara, Nov. 1919, (after having received a copy of 'Manifesto Dada 3.', written by Tzara); as quoted in: TaTa Dada: The Real Life and Celestial Adventures of Tristan Tzara, Marius Hentea, MIT Press, 12 Sep 2014, p. 115
1910's

“For you to love something, you must have seen and heard it for a long time, you idiots.”

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Francis Picabia

Original: (fr) Pour que vous aimiez quelque chose il faut que vous l'ayez vu et entendu depuis longtemps tas d'idiots.
Source: Sign for a Dada festival (March 1920)

“Naturally, form has come to take precedence over color with me, though when I began painting color predominated. Slowly artistic evolution carried from color to form and while I still employ color, of course, it is the drawing which assumes the place of first importance in my pictures.”

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Francis Picabia

Quote of Picabia, in an interview in an American newspaper, 1915; as quoted by William A. Camfield, in Francis Picabia: His Art, Life and Times, Princeton, 1979, p.77
Picabia emphasised that line took precedence over colour in his works since 1915
1910's