Machine tournez vite (Machine Turn Quickly)

1916/1918

Francis Picabia

Artist, French, 1879 - 1953

Two gears with interlocking sprockets, painted in shades of cobalt, slate, and sky blue and shown against a black background, nearly fill this abstracted, vertical work. A large gear, situated to our upper right, takes up most of the composition and extends off the top and right edges. It is marked with a number 2, and the much smaller gear, to our lower left, is labeled with a gold number 1 at its center. Circles and straight and curving lines cluster around and over the gears, and are drawn in metallic gold against the dark background but continue in black where they cross the gears. An inscription in gold capital letters across the top reads, “MACHINE TOURNEZ VITE.” In the lower left, it reads, “1 FEMME” and “2 HOMME.” The artist signed the work in lower right in metallic gold letters: “Picabia.”
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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    brush and ink with watercolor and shell gold over a 19th-century French lithographic illustration; laid down on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Patrons' Permanent Fund

  • Dimensions

    overall: 49.6 x 32.7 cm (19 1/2 x 12 7/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1989.10.1

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Galleria Schwarz, Milan; Mr. and Mrs. Fred Shore, New York; Frank Kolodny, Princeton, New Jersey; (Steven Mazoh); purchased by NGA, 1989.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1996

  • Making Mischief: Dada Invades New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1996, p. 292 (unnumbered exhibition list).

2001

  • A Century of Drawing, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2001-2002, no. 34.

2002

  • "Francis Picabia, Singulier idéal", Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 2002-2003, 180-181.

2005

  • Dada, Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; National Gallery of Art, Washington; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2005 - 2006, no. 368.

Bibliography

1967

  • Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Picabia. Eindhoven, 1967: no. 18.

1970

  • Camfield, William. Picabia. New York, Guggenheim Museum, 1970: no. 50.

1976

  • Martin, Jean-Hubert. Picabia. Paris, Centre National d'Art et de Culture, Georges Pompidou, 1976: no. 62.

1983

  • Stadtische Kunsthalle Dusseldorf, Picabia. Cologne, DuMont Buchverlag, 1983: no. 27.

1996

  • Naumann, Francis M. Making Mischief: Dada Invades New York. Exh. cat. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1996: 19, 62, 232, 282–283.

1997

  • Hughes, Robert. "Days of Antic Weirdness." Time (January 27, 1997): color repro.

  • Richler, Martha. National Gallery of Art, Washington: A World of Art. London, 1997: 180, fig. 18.

2001

  • A Century of Drawing. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2001-2002: no. 34.

2015

  • "Art for the Nation, The Story of the Patrons' Permanent Fund: Francis Picabia, Machine tournez vite (Machine Turn Quickly." National Gallery of Art Bulletin 53 (Fall 2015): 8, repro.

2016

  • National Gallery of Art. Highlights from the National Gallery of Art, Washington. Washington, 2016: 282, repro.

Inscriptions

lower right in metallic paint: Picabia; across top in metallic paint: MACHINE TOURNEZ VITE; lower left in metallic paint: 1 FEMME / 2 HOMME

Wikidata ID

Q64562827

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