Picabia

An iconoclastic poet and painter, open to everything that was 'other' and different, responsive to any form of newness-not only in art but to such external realities as machines-Francis Picabia never needed to define himself as a 'modern'. 'Sur-modern' rather than modern, he, like his early comrade Marcel Duchamp, was several years in advance of Dada and Surrealism and other avant-garde movements. A follower of nothingand no one, he, with Duchamp, was the true pioneer of modern art. A born innovator, he paid only a passing visit-and no artistic due-to the avant gardes of the day and anticipated all future forms of visual expression.