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©
Francis Picabia, VEGAP, Madrid
Francis Picabia

Predicament

1914
Watercolor and pencil on Paper mounted on cardboard.
53.8 x 64.7 cm
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Inv. no.
703
(
1982.41
)
Not on display
  • Level 2 Permanent Collection
  • Level 1 Permanent Collection
  • Level 0 Carmen Thyssen Collection and Temporary exhibition rooms
  • Level -1 Temporary exhibition rooms, Conference room and EducaThyssen workshop
Level 2
Permanent Collection
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 13 15 16 17 18 22 19 20 21 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Recommended start of the visitClassical rooms
1 14th Century. Early Italian Painting 2 15th Century. German and Spanish Painting 3 15th Century. Early Netherlandish Painting 4 15th Century. Italian Painting 5 15th and 16th Centuries. Renaissance Portraiture 6 16th Century. Villahermosa Gallery 7 16th Century. Italian Painting 8 15th and 16th Centuries. German Painting 9 15th and 16th Centuries. German Painting 10 16th Century. Netherlandish Painting 11 Tiziano, Tintoretto, Bassano and  El Greco 12 17th Century. Caravaggio and Baroque Painting 13 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 14 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 15 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 16 18th Century. Italian Painting 17 18th Century. Italian Painting 18 18th Century. Italian Painting 19 Classical rooms 20 Classical rooms 21 Classical rooms 22 18th Century. Italian Painting 23 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 24 18th Century. French and English Painting 25 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Scenes of Daily Life and Interiors 26 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 27 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Portrait 28 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 29 19th Century. European Painting. Goya and Romanticism  
Level 1
Permanent Collection
30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 Postpop rooms Rodin room
30 18th and 19th Centuries. Transatlantic Relations 31 19th Century. American Landscape and Environmental Awareness 32 19th Century. American Landscape and Urban Life 33 19th Century. The Impressionist Period 34 20th Century. Expressionist Landscapes 35 20th Century. Expressionist Portraits 36 20th Century. The Language of the Body 37 20th Century. Urban unrest 38 20th Century. Flowers 39 20th Century. Pioneers of abstraction 40 20th Century. Popular flavor 41 20th Century. The Cubist Tradition I 42 20th Century. The Cubist Tradition II 43 20th Century. Abstract Utopias 44 20th Century. Dada and Surrealism 45 20th Century. Interwar Realisms 46 20th Century. American Abstraction I 48 20th Century. Post-ward American Art 49 20th Century. Post-ward European Figurative Art 50 20th Century. Informalisms 51 20th Century. Homo Ludens 52 20th Century. Pop Art 53 Postpop rooms: Ayako Rokakku 54 Postpop rooms: Ayako Rokakku 55 Postpop rooms: Ayako Rokakku 56 Postpop rooms: Ayako Rokakku Rodin Exhibition room
Level 0
Carmen Thyssen Collection and Temporary exhibition rooms
A B C D E F G H I J Hall Temporary exhibition rooms Access to Permanent Collection Entrance Access to Carmen Thyssen Collection Paseo del Prado Garden
A 17th and 18th Centuries. Old Masters B 19th Century. North American Landscape C 19th Century. French Naturalist Landscape D 19th Century. Impressionism E 19th Century. Monet and North American Impressionism F 19th Century. Gauguin and Postimpressionism G 19th and 20th Centuries. Neo Impressionism and its Wake H 20th Century. Early Avant-gardes I 20th Century. Between the Wars Painting. Cubism, Abstraction and Surrealism J 20th Century. North American Painting and Others
Level -1
Temporary exhibition rooms, Conference room and EducaThyssen workshop
Temporary exhibition rooms Conference room EducaThyssen Workshop

Picabia’s relationship with abstract art was very short lived. The Thyssen-Bornemisza Predicament, a watercolour that predates Picabia’s conscription in summer 1914 and belonged to his friend Marcel Duchamp, was part of a suite of abstract works executed after he returned to Paris from New York. They may be considered in the same context as the watercolours he had shown at Alfred Steiglitz’s Photo Secession Gallery from March to April 1913, which expressed what he described as “the spirit of New York as I feel it.” Impressed by the American city’s modernity and vitality, Picabia threw himself into exalting the urban progress of Manhattan: “I have enlisted the machinery of the modern world and introduced it in my studio, ” he stated. Furthermore, the interviews and writings published during his period of residence in the American metropolis, which coincided with the Armory Show, reveal his insistence on the spontaneous, the expressive and the musical, denoting a particular closeness to the work of Kandinsky. This closeness may also be glimpsed in his own writings, as for him art consisted of an attempt “to render external an internal state of mind or feeling, to project onto the canvas emotional, temperamental, mental, subjective states.” 

Towards 1914 Picabia often incorporated the title of the work into the image, a device which enabled him to add certain thought-provoking ideas or contents. Embarras, the title inscribed on the upper part of the composition, which is generally translated as Predicament, has many connotations. It can also denote “problem” or “awkward situation, ” as well as “embarrassment, ” and therefore has various meanings depending on whether it refers to the nature of the image or to the state of mind of the artist or the viewer. Provocative titles of this kind, which began to enjoy a certain importance in Picabia’s pre-Dadaist works, became a decisive element in his Dadaist works produced between 1915 and 1920. It was precisely this provocative aspect of his oeuvre that was highlighted by André Breton, the painting’s owner from 1926, at the artist’s funeral in 1953: “Only someone who was a great aristocrat in spirit could dare do what you have done.” 

Paloma Alarcó

20th Century20th Century - European painting. Cubism and Its wakeWork on paperWatercolor and pencilPaper mounted on cardboard
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Private and/or didactic use
Predicament. El apuro, 1914
Predicament
Francis Picabia

©

Francis Picabia, VEGAP, Madrid

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The exploitation rights of the images correspond to the Fundacion Coleccion Thyssen-Bornemisza, F.S.P. The Fundación authorizes the downloading of high-resolution images from its website for private use, use for educational and research purposes and non-commercial uses.

However, photographed works are protected by copyright. Therefore, regardless of the terms of use of the images set out below by the Foundation, it will be necessary to obtain a license from VEGAP (www.vegap.es), or from the corresponding collective management organization in the country where the work is going to be used or, where appropriate, from the holder of their rights in order to reproduce or exploit the work.

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Predicament. El apuro, 1914
Predicament
Francis Picabia

©

Francis Picabia, VEGAP, Madrid

Terms of Use

The Photo Library of the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza offers sale and rental service of photographic material of all the works on its Permanent Collection.

To request images or permits for commercial use in academic or research publications, that is, catalogues of other institutions, monographs and other specialized publications, you should contact the Museum's Photo Library by email at the e-mail @email.

To request images or permits for other commercial or advertising uses (general publications, merchandising, exhibitions, audio-visual works, web pages, etc.), you should contact the Museum's Commercial Archive by email at the e-mail @email.

The Photo Library and the Museum's Commercial Archive manage the worldwide distribution of images of the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza works, as well as their reproduction rights. The applicable rates are calculated based on the nature and proposed use of the images, as well as the availability of the requested image.

Requests for scans or new photographs will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Once approved, an additional fee will apply. Re-photographing a work will require a minimum of six weeks to complete.

However, photographed works are protected by copyright. Therefore, regardless of the terms of use of the photographs set out below by the Foundation, it will be necessary to obtain a license from  VEGAP (Visual Entidad de Gestión de Artistas Plásticos www.vegap.es) or from the corresponding collective management organizations in the country where the work is going to be used or, where appropriate, from the holder of their rights in order to reproduce or exploit the work.

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