Artists
Marcel Duchamp
doo-SHAHN, the final p is silent
Also Known As Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp
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Marcel Duchamp's early figure paintings were influenced by Matisse and Fauvism, but by 1911 he had developed a personal, mechanized variant of Cubism; his Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912) caused a sensation at the 1913 New York Armory Show. Around 1913 he began making readymades, ordinary manufactured objects designated as art by the artist's choice alone, a radical gesture that became foundational to Dada thought on both sides of the Atlantic. Working in New York alongside Man Ray and Francis Picabia, and in contact with Alfred Stieglitz's circle, Duchamp became a central figure in shaping how New York's own contribution to Dada was later understood historically. His work fundamentally challenged the boundary between art object and everyday object, a challenge central to Dada's anti-art stance.
Facts
NationalityNaturalized United States citizen in 1955. BirthplaceBlainville-Crevon, France 1 Death PlaceNeuilly-sur-Seine, France 1 Active From Year Active To Year TrainingAcademic training at the Academie Julian in Paris, 1904-1905, which he quickly rejected as too conservative; came from a family of artists, his siblings Jacques Villon, Raymond Duchamp-Villon and Suzanne Duchamp-Crotti were also artists. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
In Movement
Central to the New York circle of Dada activity around Alfred Stieglitz's 291 gallery.
Practices
Works Created
Sources
1. Wikipedia
Wikimedia FoundationMarcel Duchamp article, lead sectionQuote, Marcel Duchamp article, lead section
Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp was a French American artist, chess player, and inventor who played a key role in the development of the avant-garde in the United States and in New York City, where he spent the last 25 years of his life.
1. Wikipedia
1. Wikipedia
1. Wikipedia
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Dissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
Works Created: Fountain
A documented minority position in art-historical scholarship holds that Fountain was created, or co-created, by the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, a fellow Dada-associated artist and Duchamp's contemporary in New York, rather than by Marcel Duchamp alone; the position rests on a 1917 letter from Duchamp to his sister describing a female friend sending the urinal under a male pseudonym, and on stylistic comparisons to the Baroness's other readymade-style works. The mainstream attribution to Duchamp remains the position institutions holding related works (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Tate) publish.
A dissenting reading, from Revisionist art historians (notably Irene Gammel's scholarship on the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven)Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation
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