Francis Picabia

Around 1914, Picabia began to pilfer words and phrases from the encyclopedic French dictionary Petit Larousse for use in his own works. He based this painting’s title on a line from Virgil’s Aeneid published in that source—“Dying, he saw again in memory his dear Argos”—but substituted “Udnie,” a name of his own invention. Picabia associated “Udnie” with memories of watching the dancer Stacia Napierkowska, whose suggestive performances subsequently provoked her arrest, rehearse onboard during his transatlantic journey to New York in 1913.

“Udnie” is also an anagram of the last name of Jean d’Udine, whose theory of synesthesia (published in 1910) linked painting with music and dance through the concept of rhythm. In this painting, rhythm is intimated via a series of repeated, interpenetrating pistons and quasi-visceral orifices, fusing the mechanical with the biological.

Around 1914 Picabia began to pilfer words and phrases from the encyclopedic Petit Larousse dictionary for use in his own works. He based this painting’s title on a line from Virgil’s Aeneid from that source—“Dying, he saw again in memory his dear Argos”—substituting “Udnie,” a name of Picabia’s own invention. The artist associated the name with his memories of French dancer Stacia Napierkowska rehearsing onboard during his transatlantic journey to New York in 1913. “Udnie” is also an anagram of the last name of French musicologist Jean d’Udine, whose theory of synesthesia (published in 1910) linked painting with music and dance through the concept of rhythm.

In this large painting, rhythm is intimated via a series of repeated, interpenetrating pistons and orifices, fusing the mechanical with the biological. The work illustrates Picabia’s predilection for machines, which intensified during his 1913 visit to New York. As one reviewer noted that year, “Picabia . . . admits to having put all former things behind him and to having grasped the genius of American machinery as the new medium through which his art may be expressed.” The painting’s conflation of mechanized movements with erotic bodily forms, along with its half-stolen title, exemplifies the irreverent approach that made Picabia a central figure in the Dada movement during the World War I years.

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

1913/14 - at least 1930, Francis Picabia, Paris.

1930 (?) - 1947, Galerie L'Effort Moderne/ Léonce Rosenberg (1879-1947), Paris.

1947 - ?, Léonce Rosenberg Estate, Paris.

? - 1954, Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, purchased from the Léonce Rosenberg Estate.

1954, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, purchased from Sidney Janis Gallery, New York.

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