Picabia, Francis (1879-1953), French avant-garde artist, born in Paris of Cuban Spanish descent. His art defies classification, as he painted in almost every major contemporary style, including Impressionism, Cubism, Fauvism, Orphism, Surrealism, and abstract art, although he is especially remembered for his work within the irreverent and absurdist movement known as Dada. Some of his best-known Dadaist works are witty portraits resembling drawings of machinery. He also worked in in drawing and collage as well as painting. In addition, he designed the influential costumes and sets for the Swedish Ballet production of Relâche in 1924. As a writer, he contributed to several avant-garde reviews. His interest in literature and language was particularly evident in his later works.

Born in Paris to a wealthy family, Picabia attended the École des Arts Décoratifs (School of Decorative Arts) from 1895 to 1897. In short order, he ran through various painting styles, including the airy landscapes of Impressionism and the fragmented geometries of Cubism.

Picabia first visited New York in 1913, when his works appeared in the Armory Show, an art exhibition that was pivotal in introducing European styles of Modern Art to the United States. Picabia's entries included the Cubist Dances at the Spring (1912, Philadelphia Museum of Art). After returning to Paris, Picabia painted some of his most acclaimed works. In Edtaonisl (1913, Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois) and I See in Memory My Dear Udnie (1914, Museum of Modern Art, New York), he produced sensual figures by combining the fluid lines of modern machinery with the fragmentation of Cubism.

Picabia was back in New York by 1915 and remained there for most of World War I. From this time through the early 1920s he produced another distinctive body of work: a series of drawings and paintings in which he portrayed human bodies as combinations of modern hardware. He drew many of the figures in the dry style of mechanical illustrations.

From 1917 to 1924 Picabia published a magazine called 391. Modelled on 291, a periodical published by American photographer Alfred Stieglitz, 391 combined illustrations and original text—including Picabia's own poetry. 391 became an important publication for the Dada movement. Although the Dada group dissolved by 1922, Picabia remained committed to its provocative spirit.

In 1924 Picabia helped create Relâche, a collaborative performance piece that included live actors, dancers from the Swedish Ballet, music by French composer Erik Satie, and the film Entr'acte, written by Picabia and directed by French film director René Clair. Additional collaborators included French artist Marcel Duchamp, who appeared naked as the biblical Adam, and American Dadaist Man Ray, who paced the floor in front of the dancing Swedish ballerinas.

Picabia soon returned to figurative painting, and by 1928 he had begun an extended series called Transparencies, in which he layered the outlines of several figures, each based on a famous painting. The confusion of overlapping outlines rendered individual figures virtually unreadable. Although unpopular with critics at the time they were painted, the Transparencies gained attention in the 1980s, as a number of artists investigated how popular images are transformed by reproduction.