Palazzo Reale opens the gates to Francis Picabia’s world of desire, war and reinvention

This autumn, Palazzo Reale in Milan opens Picabia. Open the Gates of Night, the largest exhibition in Italy devoted to Francis Picabia. From October 9th, 2026, to January 24th, 2027, more than 170 works from European museums and international collections trace an artist who continually slipped between identities, styles and artistic movements.

A life in constant transformation

From Impressionism and Fauvism to Cubism, Dada and abstraction, Picabia moved restlessly through the currents of 20th-century art. Born in Paris and active across Europe and the United States, he crossed paths with Marcel Duchamp, Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso while maintaining an unmistakably individual voice.

Organised around the ideas and experiences that shaped his work, the exhibition moves through love, dance, music, war, Spanish heritage and collective creation, revealing change as a permanent force within Picabia’s practice.

The night as a space of freedom

The night serves as the exhibition’s guiding metaphor: a realm of uncertainty and freedom where established rules dissolve and unfamiliar forms can emerge.

Paintings, drawings and photographs are accompanied by correspondence, personal documents, vintage albums and rare loans from the Picabia family, offering glimpses into the artist’s life and creative process.

Among the highlights is Saint Antoine (1930–31), from Picabia’s celebrated Transparencies series, begun in 1927. Layering images and forms to create an illusion of depth, the series grew increasingly intricate during its second phase from 1929 onward.

Saint Antoine captures this heightened complexity, its dense field of motifs reflecting Picabia’s instinct for dismantling established visual languages and rebuilding them according to his own shifting logic.

Curated by Anne Berest Picabia and produced by MADEINART, with scholarly support from the Comité Picabia, the exhibition casts night as a threshold where desire, uncertainty and reinvention remain in constant motion.