Women and Bulldog
Picabia always had a fascination with popular imagery, often employing it as a means to undermine the grave seriousness and formal concerns of modern art. In this painting, part of a notorious series of realistic and erotic nudes that he painted in the early 1940s, he used pin-ups from 1930s "nudie" magazines. Though many believe they were painted for money (they were sold through an agent in Algiers), his close friends have maintained that Picabia always painted what he wanted and that they cannot be dismissed as anomalies in his career. Curators after the war often did put them aside in favor of celebrating Picabia's Dada years, yet since the 1980s these pictures have been an important influence on artists ranging from David Salle to John Currin, who have been fascinated by their embrace of kitsch.
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