Powering Portraiture: Francis Picabia’s 291 Mechanomorphs Revived

Abstract

Francis Picabia’s mechanomorphic portrait series from 1915 ranks among the French modern artist’s most important collaborations with his American colleagues. Published in the July–August 1915 issue of the avant-garde art journal 291, Picabia’s portraits depict the Alfred Stieglitz circle as mechanical devices waiting attentively for a source of power. This essay examines the role of the reader as one source of this power. It also explores the new interpretive possibilities available when we consider the portraits’ arrangement within the journal medium itself. Moving from one page to another, the reader must consider and reconsider the mechanomorphs according to the journal’s unique layout. The nature of these particular interactions between the reader and Picabia (via his portraits) suggest something larger in the making and interpreting of modern art: the necessity of playfulness, amusement, and mental flexibility.