Picabia arrived in New York in January 1913 to attend the opening of the Armory Show. He quickly became enamored with the city and decided to extend his stay from several weeks to almost three months. In his hotel near Washington Square
Park, he executed a series of abstract watercolors, many of which were based on his impressions of New York and titled after the city. Picabia claimed that they reflected his “new conception of nature,” unmediated by recognizable imagery.

Gallery label from

Francis Picabia: Our Heads Are Round so Our Thoughts Can Direction, 2016

Provenance Research Project

This work is included in the Provenance Research Project, which investigates the ownership history of works in MoMA's collection.

[Marcel Duchamp. By 1926]
Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart, Stuttgart, Germany. By 1967
Auction, Moderne Kunst, Galerie Wolfgang Ketterer, Munich, May 17-18, 1968
Allan Frumkin Gallery, New York. Purchased at Ketterer auction, May 18, 1968 - December 1968
Joan and Lester Avnet. Purchased from Allan Frumkin Gallery, December 1968 – 1978
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Joan and Lester Avnet Collection, 1978

Provenance research is a work in progress, and is frequently updated with new information. If you have any questions or information to provide about the listed works, please email [email protected] or write to:

Provenance Research Project
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Medium Gouache, watercolor, and pencil on paper
Dimensions 22 x 29 7/8" (55.8 x 75.9 cm)
Credit The Joan and Lester Avnet Collection
Object number 145.1978
Department Drawings and Prints

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Francis Picabia

Francis Picabia

French, 1879–1953 79 works online

In 1922, Francis Picabia wrote, “If you want to have clean ideas, change them like shirts.” Throughout his audacious and inventive career, which spanned almost 50 years and encompassed painting, performance, poetry, publishing, and film, Picabia lived out that prescription.

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