Les Vieux saules à Moret is an exceptional example of Francis Picabia’s precocious talent as an Impressionist painter. Following in the footsteps of the original generation of artists like Sisley, Monet and Pissarro, Picabia spent long periods of t.mes in Moret and other Parisian suburbs, composing numerous scenes inspired by the surrounding countryside. However, in contrast to his Impressionist forebears who preferred painting en plein air, many of Picabia’s works from this period were painted in his studio. He painted a number of them from photographs and even printed postcard reproductions of works by other artists, in essence producing copies of copies and establishing an early foray into appropriation and proto-Dada technique.
Picabia’s Impressionist Works at Auction
Picabia’s career flourished between 1905-07 and the success he enjoyed at this early stage can easily be overlooked in view of his considerable contributions to later movements. As William Camfield notes: “Picabia's image has been so dominated by his Dada activities that even some friends have found it difficult to believe that he once was an Impressionist. Their surprise notwithstanding, virtually every artist who contributed to 'modern' art during the first decade of the twentieth century passed through an Impressionist or Neo-Impressionist phase early in his career; Picabia is exceptional only in the fact that for him Impressionism was not.mes rely a passing phase but a major period” (William Camfield, Francis Picabia: His Art, Life and t.mes s, New York, 1979, p. 8).
In March 1909, Picabia abruptly put an end to this period by selling over a hundred of his Impressionist paintings at a highly successful auction at the Hôtel Drouot, including the present work. Les Vieux saules à Moret was bequeathed by Mr. & Mrs. Scott Youmans to the San Diego Museum of Art, where it has been part of the collects
ion for half a century.