In October 1915, Picabia told the New York Tribune, “I have enlisted the machinery of the modern world, and introduced it into my studio.” A deluxe issue of the journal 291, also known as the “Picabia issue,” published a few months prior, is a prime demonstration of that point. The journal consisted of a single sheet of paper, printed on both sides and folded in thirds, so that it opened like a triptych.

On the front cover and interior pages, Picabia presented five full-page object portraits of the individuals responsible for the publishing and editing of 291. Alfred Stieglitz, the photographer and owner of the 291 gallery, was represented on the cover as a large-format camera with bellows attached to a car’s gearshift. The inside pages carried representations of Picabia himself, depicted as an upright car horn; the artist Marius de Zayas as a schematic outline of an automobile’s electrical system; the writer Paul Haviland as an unplugged electrical lamp; and an unnamed “young American girl in a state of nudity,” sometimes thought to be the patron Agnes Ernst Meyer, as a sparkplug.

These mechanical object portraits were conceived and created for the printed page, and they “enlisted” the machine not only in their iconography, but in their style. With their hard-edged lines and precise shading, the printed images seem like mechanical diagrams issued from an engineer’s desk. Readymade imagery played a role in Picabia’s artistic process. He based the Stieglitz portrait, for instance, on a photographic advertisement for the popular Vest Pocket Kodak camera, which he may have seen in the back pages of Camera Work in 1913 or 1914.

For Erika Mosier's essay on 291, no. 5-6, see mo.ma/picabia_conservation.