Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp was a French Dada artist, whose small but controversial output exerted a strong influence on the development of 20th-century avant-garde art. He was born on July 28, 1887, in Blainville, France, near Rouen, brother of the artist Raymond Duchamp-Villion and half brother of the painter Jacques Villion. In 1904, he went to Paris, where he met artists who later led modern art movements. Duchamp began to paint in 1908. Some artists at the time were known as Dadaists and surrealists. He was influenced mostly by Paul Cezanne. After producing several canvases in the current mode of Fauvism, he turned toward experimentation and the avant-garde, producing his most famous work, "Nude Descending a Staircase, in 1912; portraying continuous movement through a chain of overlapping cubistic figures, the painting caused a furor at New York City's famous Armory Show in 1913. He painted very little after 1915, although he continued until 1923 to work on his masterpiece. "The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors," even an abstract work, also known as "The Large Glass," composed in oil and wire on glass, that was enthusiastically received by the surrealists. In sculpture, Duchamp pioneered two of the main innovations of the 20th century--kinetic art and ready-made art. His "ready-mades” consisted simply of everyday objects, such as a urinal and a bottle rack. His "Bicycle Wheel" an early example of kinetic art, was mounted on a kitchen stool. After his short creative period, Duchamp was content to let others develop the themes he had originated; his pervasive influence was crucial to the development of surrealism, Dada and pop art. Marcel Duchamp has changed the history of modern art. His impact on the twentieth century is rivaled only by that of Matisse and Picasso, and no other figure has so directly influenced recent art forms. This book, besides presenting a documented photographic survey of Duchamp's works, offers ten original essays by eminent scholars and critics. The essays cover Duchamp's explorations in the areas of poetry, the machine, alchemy, and the epistemology of art; on a more personal, they treat the milieux and the friendships that shaped his character, the life style to which he adhered, and the influence his example has exerted. Passages from his lectures are included in the book, as well as comments and tributes by more than fifty colleagues, friends, and interested observers. Documentary illustrations, a chronology, and a bibliography complete the volume. First published in 1973 to immediate acclaim, this monograph continues to be a definitive book on Duchamp. Lavishly illustrated, it documents his entire career.He settled in the United States in 1942. Duchamp became an American citizen in 1955. He died in Paris on October 1, 1968.