Artwork Title: Femmes au bull-dog (Women with Bulldog)

Femmes au bull-dog (Women with Bulldog), 1941

Francis Picabia

...2 women, blond and brunette, on a blue-sheeted bed, a disgruntled white and black bulldog occupying the foreground. The blonde, completely naked and gazing to her right, is crouched over the dog in a soft-core cheesecake pose with heavy-lidded eyes, parted ruby lips, exposed lustrous teeth, and wavy locks. The brunette, reclining in the background, also appears to be naked, but is covered to her waist by a brown feather boa, with a dreamy expression produced by softly closed eyes. The 2 glamorous nudes are facilely modeled in a style which owed nothing to any of the painting traditions of the 19th or 20th centuries, but to the photography in girly magazines. But it is through the easily ignored, diamond-patterned window in the background that this odd vignette doubles down on its perversity. Some have charged that Picabia’s intent was merely to titillate, or to glorify perfect Aryan bodies... (http://hyperallergic.com/350924/francis-picabias-prescient-painterly-promiscuousness/)
Uploaded on Jan 14, 2017 by Suzan Hamer

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