“Powering Portraiture: Francis Picabia’s 291 Mechanomorphs Revived”
American Art Journal, Fall 2015
Francis Picabia’s mechanomorphic portrait series from 1915 ranks among the French modern artist’s most important collaborations with his American colleagues. Published in the July–August 1915 issue of the avant-garde art journal 291, Picabia’s portraits depict the Alfred Stieglitz circle as mechanical devices waiting attentively for a source of power. This essay examines the role of the reader as one source...