Composition

1910

Meets Marcel Duchamp

His meeting with Marcel Duchamp in 1910 had a decisive influence on Picabia's personality and art: he moved from Fauvism to Cubism and geometric abstraction. Other accounts have them becoming friends around 1911 in the Puteaux Group.

1913

The only Cubist at the Armory Show

The wealthy Picabia was the only Cubist to attend the Armory Show in New York in person, where he showed four paintings; the press was largely hostile, but he was widely interviewed and at once became a major name in New York's art circles.

17 March – 5 April 1913

Solo show at Stieglitz's gallery 291

Alfred Stieglitz gave him the solo show Exhibition of New York Studies by Francis Picabia at his gallery 291 — abstract works made over a few months in New York under the impression of Kandinsky and other abstract art at the Armory Show.

1921

Renounces Dada

In 1921, having developed an interest in Surrealism, Picabia publicly denounced Dada. Of his changes of course he wrote: “If you want to have clean ideas, change them like shirts.”

4 December 1924

Premiere of the ballet “Relâche”

A week later the Dada ballet to Erik Satie's music did take place at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, with Picabia as librettist, stage designer and costume designer. It is called the high point of his life and work.

30 november 1953

Died