Films
Eternal Beginning
The last chapter in the profound and influential artistic life of Francis Picabia
Alongside the exhibition “Francis Picabia. Éternel recommencement / Eternal Beginning,” Ursula presents a film that explores the mysterious paintings from the final years of Picabia’s artistic creation. Following the artist’s return to Paris in 1945, works from this period signal a renewed interest in abstraction, a return to the spirit of Dada anti-painting and the emergence of symbols drawn from medieval and prehistoric sources.
Featuring the voices of Beverley Calté, President of Comité Picabia, art historian Arnauld Pierre and Sarah Allen, Head of Research at Hauser & Wirth, alongside photographs, articles and reproductions of Picabia’s artwork from Album Picabia—a chronicle complied by Olga Picbia up until 1952, the year before his death.
“What was primarily important for Picabia was his freedom, for which he paid a high price, because he wasn't following what the trends of the day were.”—Beverley Calté
Francis Picabia, Silence, 1949. Courtesy Mercatorfonds, Belgium, and Comité Picabia
Picabia in his studio at 26 rue Danielle-Casanova (formerly rue des Petits-Champs), Paris, c. 1948–49. Courtesy Archives Comité Picabia, Paris
“Finally, with prehistory he found... that there was no point in trying to engage in this continuous series of ruptures, and that in its place, prehistory offered the model of a kind of eternal stasis, of an eternal beginning.”—Arnauld Pierre
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“Francis Picabia. Éternel recommencement / Eternal Beginning” is on view at Hauser & Wirth in Paris through 12 March 2025 and will travel to New York from 1 May – 25 July 2025. The accompanying book from Hauser & Wirth Publishers features essays by art historians Arnauld Pierre and Candace Clements.