Francis Picabia Surrealist Painting on Gallery Wall

5 October 2017 · Paris

A large framed painting hangs on a pale gallery wall, angled slightly toward the viewer. The canvas shows a figure draped in vivid blue cloth, its body human in posture but crowned with the head of a bovine animal — teeth visible, ears squared, expression unsettling in the way only painted faces can be. Below it, a cluster of reaching hands extends upward from the canvas edge, brown and pale tones mixed together, straining toward the figure as if in supplication or frenzy. The black frame with a silver inner liner gives the work a formal weight the subject matter quietly refuses. The wall card beside it reads Francis Picabia.