In 1913, traveling for the first time to New York for the Armory Show, Francis Picabia was struck by the raw energy of the city, which he considered the epitome of modernity. Describing the city itself as "Cubist," he was inspired to create a series of strikingly abstract watercolors, exhibited shortly afterward at Stieglitz's 291. According to Picabia's own testimony, the inspiration for Negro Song I came during an evening at a jazz club, where he heard "black music" for the first time. Repeatedly during the following years, De Zayas paired in his gallery new works by Picabia with African sculptures. Through an almost systematic association of Picabia's industrial/New York–inspired works with African art, De Zayas acknowledged the tight relationship he perceived between black America, New York's modernity, and the city's growing interest in African art.

Signature: Signed (lower center, in pencil): Picabia Inscribed (upper left, in pencil): CHANSON NÈgRE

Scotland, Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. Picabia: 1879-1953. Cat. p. 58, pl. 4 (ill.)

Frankfurt, Germany, Galerie Neuendorf, Sept. 28-Nov. 5, 1988

Paris, Musée du Louvre, "Dessins français du Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. De David à Picasso," 1973-1974, no. 69, repr. #87, pg. 157, 55.

New York, The Solomon Guggenheim Museum. Francis Picabia. Sept. 17 - Nov. 22, 1970. catalogue by William A. Camfield, no. 27, p. 72 (illus. and bibliography).

New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. ¦Drawings from the Alfred Stieglitz Collection¦, September 9-November 12, 1967 (no catalogue, typed checklist only)

Marseille, France. Musée Cantini. Exhibition of works by Picabia, Mar. 20 - May 15, 1962, no. 22 (ill. and catalogued).

Chicago. Art Institute. Alfred Stieglitz Exhibition: His Photographs and His Collection, 1948, no. 88.

New York. Museum of Modern Art. Alfred Stieglitz Exhibition: His Collection, June 10 - Aug. 31, 1947, no. 87.

New York. The Little Gallery at "291". Picabia Exhibition, 1913, no. 12 or 13 (both called "Negro Song").

Paris,France: Centre Georges Pompidou, September 22, 2004 -
January 3, 2005. Music and visual Arts in the 20th Century (Sons et Lumieres). p.153, illus.in color

Buffet-Picabia, Gabrielle. Picabia, l'inventeur, in L'Oeil, no. 18, June 1956, p. 35 (ill. in reverse).

Pearlstein, Philip. The symbolic language of Francis Picabia in Arts, vol. 30, Jan. 1956, p. 37 (our drawing mentioned); p. 42 (ilus).