Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp , 1887-1968, French painter, brother of Raymond Duchamp-Villon and half-brother of Jacques Villon . Duchamp is noted for his cubist-futurist painting Nude Descending a Staircase, depicting continuous action with a series of overlapping figures; it was the cause of great controversy when exhibited in 1913 at the New York Armory Show . Duchamp invented ready-mades—commonplace objects—e.g., the urinal entitled Fountain, which he exhibited as works of art. In 1915 he was a co-founder of a Dada group in New York. After 1920, Duchamp produced a series of elaborate nonfunctional machines. He emigrated to the United States in 1942. Many of his works, including the celebrated symbolic construction The Bride stripped bare by her Bachelors, even (1915-23), are at the Philadelphia Mus. of Art.

Bibliography: See catalog with study ed. by A. D'Harnoncourt and K. McShine (1973); R. E. Kuenzli and F. M. Naumann, ed., Marcel Duchamp: Artist of the Century (1989); P. Hulten, ed., Marcel Duchamp: Work and Life (1993).

Duchamp, Marcel (1887–1968) French painter. A radical art theorist, his Nude Descending a Staircase outraged visitors to the Armory Show. He produced few paintings, concentrating on abolishing the concept of aesthetic beauty. He was a leading member of New York Dada, inventing the concept of the ‘ready-made’. His Fountain consisted of nothing but a urinal. His main work, The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (1915–23), is a ‘definitively unfinished’ painting of metal collage elements on glass.

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