Duchamp, Marcel

(1887-1968)

   painter

   Marcel Duchamp, who has had a major influence on modern art, was born in Blainville-Crevon, the brother of the artists Raymond duchamp-villon, suzanne duchamp, and jacques villon. His early works, which he began at age 15, were in the impressionist style. Later, he moved to fauvism (À propos de jeune Soeur, 1911; Yvonne et Magdeleine déchiquetées, 1911; Jeune homme triste dans un train, 1911; Le Roi et la Reine entourés de nus vites, 1912), and works of this period show the influence of paul cézanne. Duchamp then moved to cubism, and his famous Nu descendant un escalier (Nude Descending a Staircase; 1912) caused an uproar when shown in Paris and later in New York City at the Armory show, the first major exhibition of modern art in the United States. His nonconformism is also evident in his Moulin à café (1911) and Broyeuse de chocolat (1913), and he continued to court controversy with his "readymades," assemblages from ordinary materials, in particular his bicycle wheel mounted on a kitchen stool (1913), and a reversed urinal, entitled Fontaine (1917), and signed R. Mutt, and a Mona Lisa with a mustache, entitled L.H.O.O.Q. (1917), an acronym with a risqué sexual connotation. He also in this period produced his mysterious masterpiece, La Mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même (1915-23), a complex work made of foil, oil paint, and wire forms set between large panes of glass. Duchamp also produced a short motion picture, Anémic cinéma, with Man Ray (1926), and one of his last works is a monumental and also controversial piece assembled out of various materials and entitled Étant donnés: 1 la chute d'eau, 2 le gaz d'éclairage (1946-66).