Jacques Ullmann, Paris
Private Collection, Paris
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Deurle, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Biennale van de Schilderkunst, 2008

The canvas is unlined. There is craquelure throughout the composition which is intrinsic to the artist's process. Apart fom some minor lines of retouching to the extreme upper left edge and corner, some tiny spots of retouching to all other extreme edges, and two very minor spots of retouching in the lower right quadrant, visible under ultra-violet light, this work is in very good condition. Colours: In comparison to the printed catalogue illustration, the colours are overall brighter and less red in the original.
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Deux visages belongs to a series of boldly modern works which Picabia executed between the late 1920s and 1930s - a group of paintings commonly known as 'transparencies'. These overlapping assemblages of transparent figures were among the most technically advanced and revolutionary compositions that the artist completed during the Surrealist era, and their visual appeal was compared to the multiple-exposure effect of film. Picabia described these works as a means by which he could 'express the resemblance of my interior desires' and 'where all my instincts may have a free course' (quoted in William A. Camfield, Francis Picabia, His Art, Life and Times, Princeton, 1979, pp. 233-34). The artist rarely elaborated further on the symbolism of these paintings, nor offered any explanation for the source imagery.

In the present work, Picabia depicts two faces in an almost cinematic close-up. Interspersed with these portraits are somewhat ambiguous shapes and patterns that, despite their lack of specificity, clearly reference organic forms. The mysterious quality of this imagery is further enhanced by a novel attention to formal concerns which the artist undertakes in his series of 'transparencies'. Picabia obfuscates the customs of Modern painting, creating a series of cracking patterns on the surface of the work that call to mind the medieval frescoes that were such a vital influence for him during this period. The range of influences on these seminal works can be expounded repeatedly but Picabia spoke of his art in more personal terms, claiming that these transparent paintings were in fact interpretations of his own reality: 'I worked for months and years making use of nature, copying it, transposing it. Now, it is my nature that I copy, that I try to express. I was once feverish over calculated inventions, now it is my instinct that guides me' (ibid., p. 239).