“The aim of art is to get us to dream, just like music, for it expresses a mood projected onto the canvas, which arouses identical sensations in the viewer.”

— Francis Picabia

“I do not consider myself a Cubist either because I have come to the conclusion that cubes are not always made for expressing the thought of the brain and of the feeling of the spirit.. .I capture a...”

— Francis Picabia

“This visit to America.. ..has brought about a complete revolution in my methods of work.. ..prior to leaving Europe I was engrossed in presenting psychological studies through the medium-ship of fo...”

— Francis Picabia

“Naturally, form has come to take precedence over color with me, though when I began painting color predominated. Slowly artistic evolution carried from color to form and while I still employ color,...”

— Francis Picabia

“'Udnie – I see Again in Memory my Dear Udnie' is no more the portrait of a young girl than 'Edtaonisl' (counterpart of his work 'Udnie'] is the image of a prelate, as we ordinarily conceive of them...”

— Francis Picabia

“Perhaps we'll be able to do beautiful things, since I have a stellar, insane desire to assassinate beauty.”

— Francis Picabia

“Splendid, it has done me enormous good to finally see and read something in Switzerland that isn't bullshit. All of it is very nice, it is really something; your manifesto expresses every philosoph...”

— Francis Picabia

“Pour que vous aimiez quelque chose il faut que vous l'ayez vu et entendu depuis longtemps tas d'idiots.”

— Francis Picabia

“The Cubists want to cover Dada with snow; that may surprise you, but it is so, they want to empty the snow from their pipe to bury DaDa.Are you sure?Positively sure, the facts are revealed by grote...”

— Francis Picabia

“FRANCIS PICABIAis an imbecile, an idiot, a pickpocket!!!1921BUTHe saved Arp from constipation!The first mechanical work was createdby madam Tzara the Day she putlittle Tristan into the world, howev...”

— Francis Picabia

“So Picabia has invented nothing, he just copies. But of course, Picabia copies an engineer's sketch instead of copying apples. Copying apples is something everybody understands, copying a turbine i...”

— Francis Picabia

“It is not a recognisable scene [his two paintings 'Dances at the spring', 1912 - Picabia painted the motion and the excitement of a peasant dance while he was on his honeymoon in the countryside of...”

— Francis Picabia

“We are living in the age of the machine. Man made the machine in his own image. She has limbs which act; lungs which breathe; a heart which beats; a nervous system through which runs electricity. T...”

— Francis Picabia

“We [ Tristan Tzara and Jean Arp ] found him [Picabia in 1919, in his hotel in Zürich] busy dissecting an alarm-clock.. .Ruthlessly he slashed away at his alarm-clock down to the spring, which he pu...”

— Francis Picabia