Eye of Art #10 : 391 (Picabia, Duchamp...)

heroldius (65)in #art • 6 years ago

A weekly (I try :-) ) series to share my art discovery with first the work that caught my eye...

I just finished the book Gabriele about the life of Gabriële Buffet with Francis Picabia from September 1908 to the birth of the last son of the couple, Vicente in 1919. On this book written by Gabriele Buffet-Picabia's great-granddaughters, Anne et Claire Berest, we discover the rencontre Gabriele and the successful young painter, Francis Picabia.

391, number 17

With her intelligence, she breaks the shackles of Picabia's work and becomes the center of interest wherever she went and met like Marcel Duchamp and Guillaume Apollinaire. This is the beginning of abstract art, Italian futurists, Dada in Zurich and all the artistic advances. Between the lines of this good book (I don't know if there is an English translation), we seethe great influence of this *shadow lady on many aspects like the creation of 391 magazine.

« La femme au cerveau érotique / The woman with erotic brain » - Francis Picabia

WHAT

391 was an art and poetry magazine created by Francis Picabia published from 1917 and 1924 in different cities following the exiles of the couple Picabia because of the first world war (Barcelona, Zurich and New York). The first example appeared in 1917 in Barcelona thanks to the founder of Galeries Dalmau, Josep Dalmau i Rafel. The name was derived from the magazine of Alfred Stieglitz in New-York, 291, a good friend of Picabia during the first visit in US for the Armory Show (where the painting Nude Descending a Staircase of Marcel Duchamp was presented), the only artist thanks to his wife who made the trip to the US. Paris was still the cultural capital of the world and artists didnt' see the opportunity.

391, number 8 I hate painting cézanne, it bores me

"Every page must explode, whether through seriousness, profundity, turbulence, nausea, the new, the eternal, annihilating nonsense, enthusiasm for principles, or the way it is printed. Art must be unaesthetic in the extreme, useless and impossible to justify." - Francis Picabia

Many artists contributed to the magazine 391 like Marcel Duchamp, Walter Conrad Arensberg, his wife Gabriele Buffet, Tristan Tzara... There are beautiful illustrations. And some very good texts about art in this period (but in French).

391, number 19

WHO

It was the idea of Francis Picabia who revolutionized art thanks to his wife, Gabriële Buffet. Just to show you the difference before and after the meeting Gabriele and Francis. Big step between impresssionism to modern art.