"M'Amenez-y"

Francis Picabia

Paris, November 1919 - January 1920

A painted cardboard panel in oil and enamel in which Picabia treats a mechanical spindle as a tongue‑in‑cheek “portrait,” using commercial lettering and machine parts to mock traditional portraiture and advertising alike.

The composition reads like a flattened advertising device—split vertically into pale green and cream, encircled by a thick black arc and punctuated by a red central column and stenciled words (notably “M'AMENEZ‑Y”), giving it the blunt, graphic force of a poster or technical diagram.

Coming after Picabia’s Dada experiments, this piece fuses mechanomorphic imagery, typography, and irony to undermine artistic authenticity and anticipate later modernist and Pop strategies that borrow from industry and commerce.

Palette

Art Terms

Painting Oil paint Enamel paint Portrait Dada Linseed Oil Typography Popular culture

Exhibitions

Four Recently Discovered Picabias and Other Modern Master Acquisitions

1980

The Cubist Imprint

1989

Abstract Painting; Shapes of Things

1941

Painting in Paris

1930