MARCEL

DUCHAMP

There is no solution because there is no problem.

Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp: Jeune homme et jeune fille dans le printemps, 1911

(Israel Museum, Jerusalem).
1887
Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp
is born on 28 July in Blainville-
Crevon (then Seine-Inférieure), a
Norman village some 20 kilometers
northeast of Rouen. He is the fourth
child of Justin-Isidore “Eugène”
Duchamp and Marie-Caroline-
Lucie Nicolle. Born in 1848 in
Massiac (Cantal) to café owners,
Eugène began his career as a clerk
in a municipal tax office. He was
transferred to Damville (Eure) in
1874. Later that same year, he met
and married Lucie, who was born in
Rouen in 1856. Her father, Émile-
Frédéric Nicolle, was a notary clerk
turned local shipping agent who had
retired in 1875 to devote himself
to painting and engraving. Lucie,
too, had a penchant for drawing
and painting. The couple’s first two
children were born in Damville:
Émile-Méry-Frédéric-Gaston in
1875 and Pierre-Maurice-Raymond
the following year. In 1876, the
family moved to Cany-Barville on
the Normandy coast. Jeanne-Marie-
Madeleine was born there in 1883,
a few months before the Duchamps
settled in Blainville-Crevon. The
recent death of the village notaire
inspired Eugène to purchase the Marcel Duchamp, circa 1890
vacant practice. Nearly seven (Archives Jean-Jacques Lebel).
months before Marcel’s birth (on
 29 December 1886), Madeleine died Marcel Duchamp:
of croup. In Blainville-Crevon, Lucie L’Église de Blainville, 1902
(Philadelphia Museum of Art).
gave birth to three more children:
Suzanne-Marie-Germaine in 1889,
Marie-Madeleine-Yvonne in 1895,
and Marie-Thérèse-Magdeleine in
1898.

CHRISTMAS 1895
Gaston announces to his parents
that he is dropping out of law school
to become an artist. He soon adopts
the name Jacques Villon.

1897
Like his brothers, Duchamp
enrolls at the Lycée Corneille in
Rouen. Boarding at the nearby
École Bossuet, he meets Ferdinand
Tribout and Raymond Dumouchel,
who remain lifelong friends. He
takes drawing lessons at the lycée
from Philippe Zacharie, a teacher
at Rouen’s École des Beaux-Arts.

Marcel and Suzanne Duchamp,

Blainville-Crevon, circa 1895–1900
(Archives Marcel Duchamp).
(Left to right) Suzanne Duchamp, Lucie Duchamp, Marcel Duchamp,
Clémence Lebourg (the Duchamps’ servant), and Yvonne Duchamp,
Blainville-Crevon, 1895 (Archives Marcel Duchamp).
1900
Raymond quits medical school and
takes up sculpture, assuming the
pseudonym Raymond Duchamp-
Villon.

1902
Duchamp undertakes his first
serious attempts at art. He produces
several drawings, many of which
take Suzanne as their subject, and
his first oil paintings, all of which
focus on the area around the family
home and the neighboring church.
In autumn, he carefully draws a bec
Auer gas lamp hanging at the École
Bossuet, a theme that will resurface
in his oeuvre.

1904
Graduating from the Lycée
Corneille, Duchamp is awarded the
medal of excellence for drawing
from the Société des amis des
arts. His parents allow him to
join his brothers in Paris. Living
with Villon at 71 rue Caulaincourt
in Montmartre, he enrolls at the
Académie Julian in November.
Gaston Duchamp, known as
“Jacques Villon,” his father,
Eugène Duchamp, and his brother,
Raymond Duchamp, known as
“Raymond Duchamp-Villon,” circa
1900 (Archives Marcel Duchamp).
Marcel Duchamp: Bec Auer,
circa 1902 (Private collection).

Make a painting of happy or unhappy chance (luck or unluck).

1905–1906 Jacques Villon:
Portrait de Marcel Duchamp,
Duchamp fails the entrance exam 1904 (Private collection).
for the École des Beaux-Arts
in Paris. To avoid two years of
military service, he decides to
become an ouvrier d’art (art
craftsman). He returns to Rouen
and apprentices at the Imprimerie Marcel Duchamp: Nu sur
de la Vicomté, mastering the un escabeau, 1907–1908
(Private collection).
techniques of etching, engraving,
and typesetting. He lives with his
parents, who recently have moved
to 71 rue Jeanne d’Arc, following
the retirement of Duchamp père.
In October, he voluntarily serves
in the 39th Infantry Regiment of
the French army. Discharged a year
later with the rank of corporal, he
returns to Montmartre and rents an
apartment at 65 rue Caulaincourt.
His brothers have moved into
neighboring studios at 7 rue
Lemaître in Puteaux, then a quiet
suburb of Paris. Duchamp resumes
drawing, and frequents Gustave
Candel and Juan Gris.

1907
Like other celebrated satirists in
Montmartre, Duchamp creates
humoristic and often sexually
suggestive drawings. He exhibits
five of them publicly for the first
time at the inaugural Salon des
artistes humoristes in Paris. He
recommences painting.

1908
Following Villon’s example,
Duchamp begins to sell his
humoristic drawings to Le
Courrier français and Le Rire
for publication. He also exhibits
at the Salon d’automne. Moving
to 9 rue de l’Amiral-de-Joinville
in Neuilly-sur-Seine, he visits his
brothers regularly in Puteaux.

Marcel Duchamp: Facsimile of a

1910
drawing for the Large Glass, 1914.

Duchamp begins a liaison with

Jeanne Serre. Estranged from
her husband, she works as an
artist’s model. He also meets the
German-born art student Max
Bergmann, visiting Paris from
Munich. Duchamp paints several
portraits of family and friends, all
indebted to Cézanne. The most
ambitious is La Partie d’échecs,
a group likeness of his brothers at
a chessboard with their spouses
nearby. Villon taught Duchamp to
play chess, and it will become a
lifelong passion.
Marcel Duchamp: Nuit
blanche and Vice sans
fin, two humoristic
drawings published in
Le Courrier français
in November 1909
(Archives Marcel
Duchamp).
1911
Jeanne Serre gives birth to
Duchamp’s daughter, Yvonne-
Marguerite-Marthe-Jeanne, known
as Yo, on 6 February. Like her
father, she eventually will take up
painting. Duchamp adopts a cubist
style, partly indebted to Villon.
Aware of the chronophotography of
Étienne-Jules Marey and Eadweard
Muybridge, he also experiments
with depicting multiple images of a
single body in motion in paintings
like Portrait (Dulcinée), Jeune
homme triste dans un train (a self-
portrait), and the initial version
of Nu descendant un escalier. He
produces a series of drawings and
paintings of two chess players (his
brothers), painting the final canvas
at night by gaslight. Duchamp-
Villon requests various friends to
contribute paintings to decorate
his kitchen in Puteaux. Duchamp
executes Moulin à café, his first
attempt at machine imagery. He
is increasingly interested in the
fourth dimension, as well as avant-
garde literature and poetry, such as
the work of Mallarmé, Raymond
Roussel, and Jules Laforgue. He
meets Francis Picabia.

Marcel Duchamp: Moulin à café,

1911 (Tate Modern, Londres).
1912
(Previous page) Marcel Duchamp:
Jeune homme triste dans un train,
In January, Duchamp completes the 1911 (Peggy Guggenheim Collection,
second version of Nu descendant Venise).
un escalier. When he submits it to
the Salon des indépendants, the
mechanomorphic figure shocks
Gleizes and Metzinger. His brothers
inform him that the work has been
rejected. The canvas subsequently
is featured in a cubist exhibition at Marcel Duchamp: Nu descendant
the Galeries J. Dalmau in Barcelona. un escalier (nos. 1 et 2), 1911 and
1912 (Philadelphia Museum of Art).
With Apollinaire and Picabia, he
attends a performance of Roussel’s
Impressions d’Afrique. In late
June, he travels to Munich for two
months. He produces two important
paintings (Le Passage de la Vierge à
la Mariée and the Mariée) and four
drawings, among them the first study
for his magnum opus, La Mariée
mise à nu par ses célibataires,
même, commonly know as the Large
Glass. He also begins jotting notes
and making sketches on bits of scrap
paper, exploring the components and
complex functioning of the Large
Glass. In October, accompanied by
Apollinaire, Picabia, and Gabrielle
Buffet-Picabia, he takes a trip into
the Jura Mountains near the Swiss
border. The Nu is shown in Paris at
the Salon de la Section d’Or.
 Marcel Duchamp: Roue de bicyclette,
1913 1964, replica of the 1913 original
In Les Peintres cubistes, (Philadelphia Museum of Art).
Apollinaire proclaims: “Perhaps
it will be the task of an artist
as detached from aesthetic
preoccupations, as preoccupied
with energy as Marcel Duchamp,
to reconcile Art and the People.”
Nu descendant un escalier
(no. 2) is a succès de scandale
at New York’s International
Exhibition of Modern Art (a.k.a.
the Armory Show). Derided by
one journalist as an “explosion
in a shingle factory,” the canvas
is bought by a San Francisco
collector sight unseen. Duchamp
embraces “canned chance” as a
creative impetus, “composing”
Erratum musical and beginning
3 Stoppages étalon. He executes
additional preparatory works
for the Large Glass, all of
which are mechanical in style,
including his first work on
glass. Moving back to Paris, he
takes a job at the Bibliothèque
Sainte-Geneviève. He mounts a
bicycle wheel upside down on a
stool, the first object he would
later dub a “readymade.”

Marcel Duchamp: Drawing for the

stationmaster for 9 Moules mâlic,
1913–1914 (Private Collection).
1914 (Preceding double page) Percy
Rainford: Installation of the
Duchamp continues to fashion International Exhibition of
major studies for the Large Modern Art, known as the Armory
Glass, among them Broyeuse de Show, 69th Regiment Armory,
chocolat (no. 2) and 9 Moules New York, 17 February–15 March
mâlic. Chosen on the basis of 1913 (Archives of American
Art, Smithsonian Institution,
visual indifference and intended Washington DC).
as an interrogation of “retinal”
art, he buys a bottle rack and a
commercial print of a landscape
as readymades. In an edition of
five, he produces the Boîte de
1914, comprised of facsimiles of a
drawing and 16 manuscript notes.
With the outbreak of World War I,
Villon and Duchamp-Villon are
drafted.

1915
Suffering from a heart murmur,
Duchamp is declared unfit for
military service. He accepts Walter
Pach’s invitation to move to New
York, landing in Manhattan on
15 June. Pach soon introduces him
to Walter and Louise Arensberg,
who will become close friends and
his main patrons. After living with
the Arensbergs, Duchamp takes
a studio at 1947 Broadway and
commences the Large Glass. He
buys and inscribes a snow shovel,
coins the term “readymade,” and
Henri-Pierre Roché: Three views of Marcel Duchamp’s
readymades in his New York studio, 33 West 67th Street,
circa 1916–1918 (Archives Jean-Jacques Lebel).
confesses years later: “I’m not
at all sure that the concept of the
readymade isn’t the most important
The litanies of the chariot:
single idea to come out of my
work.” Duchamp meets Man Ray.
Slow life.
Vicious circle.
Onanism.
1916 Horizontal.
Frequenting lively soirées at the Round trip for the buffer.
Arensbergs’ apartment, Duchamp Junk of life.
befriends Henri-Pierre Roché, Cheap construction.
Beatrice Wood, Joseph Stella, Tin, cords, iron wire.
Charles Demuth, Edgard Varèse, Eccentric wooden pulleys.
Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, Monotonous fly wheel.
Fania and Carl Van Vechten, Arthur Beer professor. (to be entirely
Cravan, Mina Loy, and others. He redone).
continues his investigation of the
readymade, producing Comb, À
bruit secret (with Walter Arensberg),
and ...pliant,...de voyage. The
Bourgeois Gallery publicly exhibits
two unidentified readymades for the
first time. Duchamp moves into a
studio in the Arensbergs’ apartment
building at 33 West 67th Street.
They pay his rent in exchange for
ownership of the Large Glass.
As founding members of the Marcel Duchamp:
Society of Independent Artists, Apolinère Enameled, 1916–1917
he and Katherine Dreier become (Philadelphia Museum of Art),
acquainted. He recreates Roue de and ...pliant,...de voyage, 1964,
bicyclette in his New York studio. replica of 1916 original.

The bachelor grinds his chocolate himself.

 Alfred Stieglitz: Photograph of
1917 Marcel Duchamp’s readymade
Under the pseudonym “R. Mutt,” entitled Fountain, 1917
Duchamp submits a urinal entitled (Private collection).

Fountain to the inaugural exhibi-

tion of the Society of Indepen-
dent Artists. The directors vote
to reject this readymade, despite
their edict “no jury, no prizes.”
Duchamp resigns from the board
in protest. Alfred Stieglitz photo-
graphs Fountain, which is lost or
destroyed soon thereafter. With
Wood and Roché, Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp, Beatrice Wood,
publishes two issues of The Blind and Henri-Pierre Roché: The Blind
Man. The second issue contains Man, no. 2, May 1917 (Collection
an editorial defending Fountain: Francis M. Naumann).
“Whether Mr. Mutt with his own
hands made the fountain or not has
no importance. He chose it.” He
is increasingly friendly with the
wealthy Stettheimer sisters (Carrie,
Ettie, and Florine).

1918–1919
Katherine Dreier commissions
Duchamp to paint a canvas for
her apartment, after which he
renounces painting altogether.
Dominated by cast shadows of
several previous works, Tu m’ is
“a form of résumé,” according
to Duchamp. He has a cameo in
Léonce Perret’s film Lafayette!
We Come! After the United States
 Marcel Duchamp: L.H.O.O.Q.,
enters the war, Duchamp and his 1919 (Private collection).
companion, Yvonne Chastel, leave
New York in August for Buenos
Aires. Dreier follows them. In the
Argentine capital, he executes a
study in glass for the Large Glass,
attempts to organize a cubist
exhibition, and designs both rubber
stamps for playing correspondence
chess and a wooden chess set.
Duchamp-Villon dies on 7 October
1918. As a wedding gift to Suzanne
and her new husband, Jean
Crotti, he instructs them to create
Ready-made malheureux. After
ten months of avid chess playing,
he confesses to Walter Arensberg:
“I feel I am quite ready to become
a chess maniac.” Returning to
Europe in August 1919, Duchamp
lives with Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia.
He purchases a chromolithograph
of the Mona Lisa, adds a mustache
and goatee to the face, and inscribes
L.H.O.O.Q. beneath her. This risqué
“rectified” readymade becomes a
talisman for the Dada movement.

Katherine Dreier or Yvonne

Chastel (?): Marcel Duchamp in
front of a chessboard in Buenos
Aires, January 1919 (Archives
Jean-Jacques Lebel).
 Marcel Duchamp: 50 cc air de Paris,

1920
1919 (Philadelphia Museum of Art).

Landing in New York in January,

Duchamp brings 50 cc air de Paris
as a present for the Arensbergs,
who already have assembled a
sizable collection of his work.
With Katherine Dreier and Man
Ray, Duchamp founds the Société
Anonyme, Inc., the first museum
of modern art in the United States.
He initially serves as its president
and exhibition chairman and later
as its secretary. In his studio at
246 West 73rd Street, he fabricates
Rotative plaques verre (optique
de précision), his first motorized
optical machine. After Duchamp
relocates his studio to 1947
Broadway, Man Ray photographs
the accumulation of dust on the
Large Glass. Duchamp’s drag
persona, Rose Sélavy, is “born”
and lends her signature to puns and
readymades, the first being Fresh
Widow.

1921
Man Ray photographs Duchamp
in drag as Rose Sélavy. They
publish New York Dada, the cover
of which depicts the readymade
Belle Haleine, Eau de Voilette.
With various readymade elements,
Establish a society in which the
individual has to pay for the air he
breathes (air meters); imprisonment
and rarefied air, penality in case of
non-payment, simple asphyxiation
if necessary (cut off the air).
Man Ray: Marcel Duchamp cross-dressed as Rrose Sélavy,
1920–1921 (Philadelphia Museum of Art).
Duchamp fabricates Why Not Sneeze
Rose Sélavy? The Arensbergs move
to California. Invited by Tristan
Tzara to participate in a group
Dada exhibition in Paris, Duchamp
refuses, replying from New York
“pode bal” (balls to you). He
returns to Paris in June, and Picabia
introduces him to the Parisian
Dadaists, including Tzara, André
Breton, Louis Aragon, Georges
Ribemont-Dessaignes, and Philippe
Soupault. Duchamp amends Rose
Sélavy to Rrose Sélavy, a pun on
éros, c’est la vie.

1922
Duchamp returns to New York
and continues work on the Large
Glass. Breton publishes the first
significant critical text on Duchamp
in the October issue of Littérature.
In the December issue of the same
journal, Breton includes puns
and spoonerisms that Robert
Desnos claims to have received
telepathically while in a trance
from Rrose Sélavy.

Man Ray: Robert Desnos in

a trance receiving the puns and
spoonerisms of Rrose Sélavy via
telepathy, 1922 (Man Ray Trust).
1923–1924
The Arensbergs sell the Large Glass
to Katherine Dreier. Duchamp
ceases work on his magnum opus,
declaring it “definitely unfinished.”
In February, he moves to Brussels
and plays chess professionally.
Resettling in Paris, he spends his
time studying chess problems, and
renews his friendship with Brancusi,
whom he had met around 1912. In
late 1923 or early 1924, he initiates
a liaison with Mary Reynolds.
Jacques Doucet commissions a
second optical machine, on which
Duchamp works for most of
1924. He travels around France,
competing in chess tournaments.
In Monte Carlo, he devises a
system of betting in roulette based
on chance, and issues 30 bonds to
finance the operation. Duchamp Man Ray: Marcel Duchamp and
and Man Ray are seen playing chess Brogna Perlmutter in Ciné-sketch,
in René Clair’s and Picabia’s film Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris,
Entr’acte. On 31 December 1924 31 December 1924 (Philadelphia
at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées
Museum of Art).

as part of Ciné-sketch, Duchamp

appears on stage nude as Adam in
a tableau vivant after a work by Man Ray: Mary Reynolds, Paris,
Cranach. circa 1925 (Archives Laurence Vail).

(Preceding double page)

Marcel Duchamp: Belle Haleine,
Eau de Voilette, 1921 (Private
collection).
1925–1926
Duchamp’s mother dies on 29
January. His father follows five
days later. He participates in the
French chess championship in Nice,
for which he designs the poster.
Using his inheritance, Duchamp
makes Anémic Cinéma, a short film
composed of puns by Rrose Sélavy
arranged on rotating disks and
interspersed with abstract optical
spirals. He purchases 80 artworks by
Picabia and puts them up for auction
at Hôtel Drouot in Paris. He and
Dreier organize the International
Exhibition of Modern Art sponsored
by the Société Anonyme at the
Brooklyn Museum, where the Large
Glass is shown publicly for the first
time. In fall 1926, Duchamp returns
to New York to install an exhibition Marcel Duchamp’s parents, circa
of Brancusi’s work at the Brummer Duchamp).
1923–1924 (Archives Marcel

Gallery. He meets Julien Levy.

1927
In New York, Duchamp, Roché, and
Mary Rumsey purchase numerous
Brancusi sculptures sold as part
of John Quinn’s estate. He travels
to Chicago to install a Brancusi
exhibition at the Arts Club of
Chicago. Returning to Paris in
Marcel Duchamp: Obligation pour
la Roulette de Monte-Carlo, 1924
(current whereabouts unknown).
(Preceding double page, second
row, second from left) Marcel
Duchamp at the French chess
championship organized by the
Fédération française des échecs,
Strasbourg, 31 August 1924.
late February, he rents a studio at
11 rue Larrey. With Man Ray and
Antoine Pevsner, he remodels
the apartment, installing a single
door that serves two doorways.
The Picabias introduce Duchamp
to Lydie Sarazin-Levassor. They
marry on 7 June.

1928–1929
On 25 January, Duchamp and
Sarazin-Levassor are officially Man Ray: Lydie Sarazin-Levassor,
1927 (Beinecke Rare Book and
divorced, and he renews his Manuscript Library, Yale University,
relationship with Mary Reynolds. New Haven, Connecticut).
Continuing to play competitive
chess, he admits to Katherine Dreier:
“Chess is my drug.” In spring 1929,
he and Dreier spend several weeks in
Spain.

1930–1931
Duchamp creates a second version
of L.H.O.O.Q., which is featured
in a Parisian exhibition organized
by Aragon. He meets Alexander
Calder and christens his kinetic
sculptures “mobiles.” In September
1931, Reynolds, Brancusi, and
Duchamp vacation together in
Villefranche-sur-Mer. He becomes
a member of the committee of the
Fédération française des échecs
Marcel Duchamp: (Left to right) Duchamp, Mary Reynolds and
Constantin Brancusi, Villefranche-sur-Mer, 8 September 1931 (Mary
Reynolds Collection, Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, Art Institute of
Chicago).
and its delegate (until 1937) to
the Fédération internationale des
échecs. Katherine Dreier discovers
that the Large Glass, in storage
since 1927, is broken.

1932–1933
Duchamp designs and publishes
L’Opposition et les cases conjugées
sont réconciliées, a chess treatise
on endgame strategy co-authored
with Vitaly Halberstadt. In June
1933, he participates in his last in-
ternational chess tournament. That
summer, he and Reynolds visit the
Dalís in Cadaqués, Spain. Duchamp
travels to New York in autumn and
organizes a second Brancusi exhibi- Use “delay” instead of picture
tion at the Brummer Gallery, where or painting; picture on glass
he meets Joseph Cornell. becomes delay in glass—but
delay in glass does not mean
picture on glass.
1934 It’s merely a way of succeeding
in no longer thinking that the thing
Duchamp assembles a selection of
in question is a picture—to make
93 notes pertaining to the Large
a delay of it in the most general
Glass and has them meticulously
way possible, not so much in the
printed in facsimile. Accompanied
different meanings in which delay
by reproductions of certain of his
can be taken, but rather in their
artworks, they are published in
indecisive reunion. “Delay”—a
September in an edition generally
delay in glass, as you would say
known as the Boîte verte.
a poem in prose or a spittoon in
silver.
Marcel Duchamp: La Mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même,
known as la Boîte verte, 1934 (Archives Marcel Duchamp).
 Walter Buschman: Katherine
1935–1936 Dreier and Marcel Duchamp
with La Mariée mise à nu par ses
Breton’s text “Phare de la célibataires, même (1915–1923),
Mariée,” the first comprehen- known as the Large Glass, at
sive study of the Large Glass, Dreier’s home, West Redding,
is published in Minotaure, the Connecticut, 30 August 1936
cover of which Duchamp designs. (Philadelphia Museum of
Art Archives).
With financial help from Roché,
Duchamp produces 500 sets of
Rotoreliefs (disques optiques).
These two-sided disks are a
commercial flop when unveiled at
the Concours Lépine. Duchamp
also designs covers for George
Hugnet’s La Septième face du dé
and Cahiers d’art, which includes
an article by Buffet-Picabia on
his work. Certain of his ready-
mades and early paintings are
featured in group exhibitions in
Paris, London, and New York. In Beatrice Wood: Marcel Duchamp
summer 1936, Duchamp travels at the Arensbergs’ home,
to Dreier’s Connecticut home to Hollywood, 17 August 1936
restore the Large Glass. He visits (Archives Marcel Duchamp).
the Arensbergs in Hollywood.

Mary Reynolds and Marcel

Duchamp: Binding for Ubu Roi
(1921 edition) by Alfred Jarry,
1935 (Mary Reynolds Collection,
Ryerson and Burnham Libraries,
Art Institute of Chicago).

1937–1938
The Arts Club of Chicago mounts
Duchamp’s first solo exhibition.
He designs the entrance of Breton’s
Gradiva art gallery in Paris. In
March 1937 on Aragon’s invitation,
he begins to write a weekly chess
column for Ce Soir. He also designs
a cover for the journal Transi-
tion. In January 1938, Duchamp
(coaxed by Breton) collaborates on
the mise en scène for the Exposi-
tion internationale du surréalisme
at the Galerie Beaux-Arts in Paris.
He contributes a female mannequin
(Rrose Sélavy) partially cross-
dressed in his own clothing. The
same month, he installs works by
Jean Cocteau for the opening of the
gallery of Peggy Guggenheim
(Preceding double page) Marcel
Duchamp: Boîte-en-valise,
conceived between 1935 and 1941,
series F, 1966 (Archives Marcel
Duchamp).
Rrose Sélavy trouve
qu’un incesticide
doit coucher avec
sa mère avant de la
tuer ; les punaises
sont de rigueur.
Rrose Sélavy et moi esquivons
les ecchymoses des Esquimaux
aux mots exquis.

Lits et ratures.
1939–1940
In April, glm publishes Duchamp’s
collection of puns and spoonerisms
titled Rrose Sélavy. He and
Reynolds spend summer 1940 Du dos de la cuiller
in Arcachon near Bordeaux with au cul de la douairière.
Suzanne Duchamp, Crotti, and the
Dalís. He continues the painstaking
work on his Boîte-en-valise
(commenced in 1935), a suitcase
containing 69 miniature replicas
and reproductions of his oeuvre.
 Konstantinos « Costa », Achilopulu:
Mary Reynolds and Marcel Duchamp, London, 1937
(Archives Marcel Duchamp).

À charge de revanche ; à verge de rechange.

My niece is cold because my knees are cold.

1941
Duchamp completes the first
examples of the deluxe edition
of the Boîte-en-valise. Thanks
to his friend Gustave Candel, a
wholesale cheese merchant, he
obtains an Ausweis, which enables
him to transport elements for
additional examples of his portable
museum from the Occupied Zone
in Paris to the Unoccupied Zone
in Marseille. For almost a year,
he lives with his sister Yvonne in
nearby Sanary-sur-Mer, waiting for
a visa to travel to the United States.
He and Katherine Dreier bequeath
the art collection of the Société
Anonyme to Yale University.

1942
Arriving in New York on 25
June, Duchamp lives briefly with
Peggy Guggenheim and Max
Ernst. They introduce him to John
Cage. Duchamp spends significant
amounts of time with surrealist
artists and writers who have escaped
war-torn Europe, including, among
others, Matta, Patrick and Isabelle Marcel Duchamp: Covers of the
Waldberg, Robert Lebel, Max Ernst, exhibition catalogue First Papers
Kurt Seligmann, Yves Tanguy, of Surrealism, Whitelaw Reid
and Breton. He collaborates with Mansion, New York, 14 October–
7 November 1942 (Archives Marcel
the latter on the exhibition First Duchamp).
John D. Schiff: Installation of the exhibition First Papers of Surrealism
conceived by Marcel Duchamp (Philadelphia Museum of Art Archives).

Marcel Duchamp: Pocket

Chess Set, 1943 (Archives
Marcel Duchamp).
Papers of Surrealism, designing the
catalogue and hanging hundreds of
feet of string throughout the gallery
to create a spider web–like effect.
The Boîte-en-valise is placed on
public view for the first time at
Peggy Guggenheim’s gallery Art of
This Century. Duchamp moves in
with Stefi and Frederick Kiesler.

1943
Active in the French Resistance,
Mary Reynolds escapes Occupied
France, crosses the Pyrenees on foot,
and lands in New York in January.
Duchamp designs the covers of the
second issue of VVV, for which he
also serves as an editorial advisor.
Vogue rejects Allégorie de genre
for its cover. Duchamp meets Maria
Martins, a sculptor and the wife of
the Brazilian ambassador to the
United States, and they commence
a passionate love affair. In the fall,
Duchamp moves into a studio at
210 West 14th Street. In addition Marcel Duchamp: Covers of
to designing a pocket chess set, the second issue of VVV, 1943
he appears in Maya Deren’s film (Archives Marcel Duchamp).
Witch’s Cradle.

Ethel Pries: Marcel Duchamp,

New York, 1946 (Archives
Jean-Jacques Lebel).
1944–1945
Duchamp co-organizes and
participates in the group exhibition
The Imagery of Chess at the Julien
Levy Gallery. In March 1945,
a special issue of View devoted
to him is published. It includes
an article by Sidney and Harriet
Janis in which the artist proclaims:
“There is no solution because
there is no problem.” He designs
the covers, the back one featuring
a note regarding the infra-mince,
a concept first broached in 1937.
George Heard Hamilton mounts
an exhibition of the work of the
Duchamp brothers at Yale. For the
publication of Breton’s Arcane 17,
the author and Duchamp create
a window display at Brentano’s,
which is transferred to the Gotham
Book Mart following protests. In
August, Duchamp visits Denis de
Rougemont in Lake George, New
York. The Museum of Modern Art
purchases Le Passage de la Vierge
à la Mariée, the first of Duchamp’s
paintings to enter a museum.

Marcel Duchamp: Covers of View,

March 1945 (Archives Marcel Duchamp).
1946
In secret, Duchamp begins Étant
donnés: 1° la chute d’eau, 2° le gaz
d’éclairage, a three-dimensional
tableau installation that will take 20
years to complete. It features a nude
female mannequin fashioned in part
from casts of Maria Martins’s body.
James Johnson Sweeney publishes
the first extended interview with
Duchamp in the Museum of Modern
Art Bulletin. Duchamp returns to
Paris in May.

1947–1948
Leaving Paris for New York in
January, Duchamp allows Isabelle Marcel Duchamp: Plaster study
for the nude of Étant donnés,
Waldberg to live in his rue Larrey 1949 (Private collection).
studio. With Breton, he conceives
the decor for the Exposition
internationale du surréalisme
in Paris. He and Enrico Donati
fabricate the cover for the deluxe
edition of the catalogue, consisting
of a foam-rubber breast and a label
that reads “prière de toucher”
(please touch). Commenced in
1944 and containing an episode
with Duchamp, Hans Richter’s
film Dreams That Money Can (Preceding page) Maya Deren:
Marcel Duchamp reinstalling
Buy is released in April 1948. the window display that he and
Following her husband, Maria André Breton conceived in honor
Martins relocates to Paris. of Arcane 17, Gotham Book Mart,
New York, 18–19 April 1945
(Archives Jean-Jacques Lebel).
Maria Martins and her gold jewelry photographed and published in
American Vogue, 1 July 1944 (Collection Francis M. Naumann).
 1949–1950
Duchamp participates in the
Western Round Table on Modern
Art at the San Francisco Museum
of Art. The Art Institute of
Chicago exhibits selections
from the Arensbergs’ collection,
among them some 30 works of
Duchamp’s. Collection of the
Société Anonyme is published with
33 texts on various artists written
by Duchamp. With Duchamp by
her side, Mary Reynolds dies in
Paris on 30 September 1950. He
fabricates the first of several erotic
objects based on Étant donnés.
Maria Martins moves back to
Brazil, and her relationship with Marcel Duchamp: Moonlight on
Duchamp ends. the Bay at Basswood, 21 august
1953 (Philadelphia Museum of
Art).

1951
In June, Duchamp meets Monique
Fong in New York. Later in the year,
he renews contact with Alexina
“Teeny” Matisse, the former wife of
Pierre Matisse. They soon become
a couple.

(Left to right) Pierre-Noël,

Paul, and Jacqueline Matisse,
the children of Alexina “Teeny”
Matisse, in front of their country
house, Lebanon, New Jersey, circa
1940 (Archives Jacqueline Matisse
Monnier).
 (Preceding page) Marcel Duchamp
1952 in a wig in Man Ray’s studio, Paris,
Duchamp helps organize Duchamp circa 1955 (Archives Marcel
frères & sœur at the Rose Fried Duchamp).

Gallery. After Katherine Dreier dies

on 29 March, he assists in mounting
a memorial exhibition in her honor
at Yale. In August, he addresses the
New York State Chess Association,
proclaiming: “I have come to the Marcel Duchamp and Jacqueline
personal conclusion that while all Matisse during the filming of
artists are not chess players, all 8 X 8 by Hans Richter, Southbury,
Connecticut, summer 1952
chess players are artists.” (Archives Marcel Duchamp).

1953
As an executor of Katherine
Dreier’s will, Duchamp distributes
her art collection among various
museums. The Large Glass goes
to the Philadelphia Museum of
Art, where the Arensbergs had
bequeathed their collection in 1950.
He installs the group exhibition
Dada 1916–1923 at the Sidney
Janis Gallery and designs the
poster-catalogue. Louise Arensberg
dies on 25 November, and Picabia
five days later.

Marcel Duchamp: Poster-catalogue

for the exhibition Dada 1916–1923,
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York,
15 April– 9 May 1953 (Archives
Marcel Duchamp).
 (Preceding double page) Michel
1954 Waldberg: Teeny and Marcel
Duchamp marries Teeny Matisse Duchamp, 11 rue Larrey, Paris,
circa 1957–1959 (Archives Jean-
on 16 January, becoming the Jacques Lebel).
stepfather to her three children,
Jacqueline, Paul, and Pierre-Noël.
As a wedding gift, he presents
her with Coin de chasteté. For
the next five years, the Duchamps
live in the former apartment of
Dorothea Tanning and Max Ernst
at 327 East 58th Street. Walter
Arensberg dies on 29 January.
The Musée national d’art moderne
in Paris acquires Les Joueurs
d’échecs (1911), Duchamp’s first
work to enter a French museum.
Duchamp oversees the installation
of the Arensberg Collection at the
Philadelphia Museum of Art and
enlists Ilia Zdanevitch to make a
new edition of the Boîte-en-valise.
(His stepdaughter, Jacqueline
Matisse Monnier, will assemble the Marcel Duchamp: Coin de chasteté,
1954 (Private collection).
four subsequent editions.)

1955–1956
On 30 December, Duchamp
becomes an American citizen. The
following January, his first filmed
interview, which James Johnson
Sweeney conducts, is broadcast
on American television. The Art
Institute of Chicago publishes
I considered painting as a means of expression, not an end
in itself. One means of expression among others, and not a
complete end for life at all; in the same way I consider that color
is only a means of expression in painting and not an end. In
other words, painting should not be exclusively retinal or visual;
it should have to do with the gray matter, with our urge for
understanding. This is generally what I love. I didn’t want to
pin myself down to one little circle, and I tried at least to be as
universal as I could. That is why I took up chess. Chess in itself is
a hobby, is a game, everybody can play chess. But I took it very
seriously and enjoyed it because I found some common points
between chess and painting. Actually when you play a game of
chess it is like designing something or constructing a mechanism
of some kind by which you win or lose. The competitive side of it
has no importance, but the thing itself is very, very plastic, and
that is probably what attracted me in the game....I’m interested
in the intellectual side of things, although I don’t like the word
“intellect.” For me “intellect” is too dry a word, too inexpressive.
I like the word “belief.” I think in general that when people say
“I know,” they don’t know, they believe. I believe that art is
the only form of activity in which man as man shows himself to
be a true individual. Only in art is he capable of going beyond
the animal state, because art is an outlet toward regions which
are not ruled by time and space. To live is to believe; that’s my
belief, at any rate.

Marcel Duchamp, cited in a filmed interview with James Johnson

Sweeney broadcast on American television in January 1956.
Surrealism and Its Affinities: The
Mary Reynolds Collection, which
Duchamp has helped compile. He
also writes the preface and designs
the bookplate for the catalogue.

1957–1958
Assisted by Duchamp, Sweeney
mounts an exhibition devoted
to the Duchamp brothers at the
Guggenheim Museum. Duchamp
designs the catalogue. The
exhibition travels to the Houston
Museum of Fine Arts, where
the artist gives a major lecture
entitled “The Creative Act.” On 30
January 1958, Jean Crotti dies. The
Duchamps begin to spend summers
in Cadaqués.

1959
The Duchamps move to an
apartment at 28 West 10th Street.
Robert Lebel publishes the first
monograph and catalogue raisonné
focused on Duchamp. The artist
assists with the layout and fashions
the deluxe edition, which features
three new works, among them
his only self-portrait. Michel
Sanouillet edits Marchand du sel,
the first significant compilation of
Richard Lusby: Marcel Duchamp signing the labels eau & gaz à tous les étages
for the deluxe edition of Sur Marcel Duchamp by Robert Lebel, Paris,
23 September 1958 (Philadelphia Museum of Art Archives).
Duchamp’s writings and statements.
bbc radio broadcasts an interview
with Duchamp by George Heard
Hamilton and Richard Hamilton.
With Breton, Duchamp organizes
the Exposition inteRnatiOnale du
Surréalisme (éros) in Paris.

1960
George Heard Hamilton and
Richard Hamilton produce the first
English translation of the Boîte
verte. Duchamp participates in the
symposium “Should the Artist Go
to College?” at Hofstra College
in New York. He meets Jasper Marcel Duchamp: Autoportrait de
profil, no. 000, 1957, inscribed to
Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, Teeny Duchamp (Private collection).
and collaborates with Breton on
the group exhibition Surrealist
Intrusion in the Enchanters’
Domain in New York, for which
he designs the catalogue cover.
Georges Charbonnier interviews
Duchamp for Radiodiffusion-
Télévision française.

1961
Ulf Linde creates the first replica
of the Large Glass (signed by
Duchamp), which is exhibited in
Stockholm. In March, Duchamp
discusses the future of art at the
 A point which I want very much to establish is that the choice
of these “readymades” was never dictated by esthetic de-
lectation. This choice was based on a reaction of visual
indifference with at the same time a total absence of good
or bad taste... in fact a complete anesthesia.
[...] I realized very soon the danger of repeating in-
discriminately this form of expression and decided to limit
the production of “readymades” to a small number yearly.
I was aware at that time, that for the spectator even more
than for the artist, art is a habit forming drug and I wanted to
protect my “readymades” against such contamination.
Another aspect of the “readymade” is its lack of
uniqueness... The replica of a “readymade” delivering the
same message; in fact nearly every one of the “readymades”
existing today is not an original in the conventional sense.
A final remark to this egomaniac’s discourse: since the
tubes of paint used by the artist are manufactured and ready
made products we must conclude that all the paintings in
the world are “readymades aided” and also works of assem-
blage.

Marcel Duchamp, excerpts from “Apropos of ‘Readymades’”

(1961)

Marcel Duchamp: Cover of the exhibition catalogue Surrealist

Intrusion in the Enchanters’ Domain, D’Arcy Galleries, New York,
28 November 1960–14 January 1961 (Achives Paul B. Franklin).
Philadelphia Museum College of
Art, stating: “The great artist of
tomorrow will go underground.”
The American Chess Foundation
holds a benefit auction in New
York spearheaded by Duchamp.
He receives an honorary doctoral
degree from Wayne State University
in Detroit, Michigan.

1962–1963
Assisted by Teeny, Duchamp
continues work on Étant donnés.
Villon dies on 9 June. Suzanne
Crotti dies the following September.
Duchamp designs the poster for the
fiftieth anniversary exhibition of the
Armory Show in Utica, New York.
In October 1963, Walter Hopps
mounts the first major retrospective
of Duchamp’s work at the Pasadena
Art Museum. The artist designs the
poster.
Marcel Duchamp in Las Vegas,
Nevada, October 1963 (Archives
1964–1965
Marcel Duchamp).

With Duchamp’s consent and

participation, the Italian art dealer
Arturo Schwarz has fabricated a
limited edition of replicas of the
readymades. Jean-Marie Drot’s
film Jeu d’échecs avec Marcel Mark Kauffman: Marcel Duchamp
Duchamp, containing interviews playing chess on a wall-mounted
chessboard, Cadaqués, 1960.
(Archives Marcel Duchamp).
 Marcel Duchamp on the terrace of
with the artist, is broadcast on his apartment in Cadaqués, circa
French television. The Duchamps 1964–1965. (Archives Marcel
move into Suzanne Duchamp’s Duchamp).
former studio at 5 rue Parmentier in
Neuilly-sur-Seine in summer 1964,
which they inherited after her death.
In January 1965, Cordier & Ekstrom
gallery hosts a retrospective that
features several works never before
exhibited. Duchamp designs the
invitation and the catalogue cover.

1966
In February, after two months of
methodical work, Duchamp and
Teeny finish moving Étant donnés
and the rest of the contents of his
studio on West 14th Street to a new
space at 80 East 11th Street. The
same month, Andy Warhol films
Duchamp at the opening of Hommage
à Caïssa, a chess exhibition the
latter staged at Cordier & Ekstrom.
Richard Hamilton organizes the
first major European retrospective
of Duchamp’s work at the Tate
Gallery in London, producing a
second replica of the Large Glass
for the occasion. In Paris, Duchamp
meets his grown daughter, Yo
Savy. He completes Étant donnés,
having sold it to William Copley’s
Cassandra Foundation with the
understanding that after his death it Marcel Duchamp: Cage Czech, 1966
(Private collection).
 will be donated to the Philadelphia Can one make works which are not
Museum of Art. He also fashions a works of “art”?
manual of instructions explaining
how the work should be dismantled
and reassembled. Look through a dictionary and
scratch out all the “undesirable”
words.
1967 Perhaps add a few. —Sometimes
Pierre Cabanne publishes his replace the scratched out words
extensive interviews with Duchamp with another.
in January. Cordier & Ekstrom Use this dictionary for the written
exhibits À l’infinitif, generally part of the glass.
known as the Boîte blanche, a
collection of 79 unpublished notes
by Duchamp. The Musée des
Beaux-Arts in Rouen presents an
exhibition devoted to the Duchamp
siblings. In June, Duchamp’s
readymades are presented at
Galerie Claude Givaudan in Paris.
The artist designs the invitation
and poster. Duchamp arranges for
Yo Savy to exhibit her paintings in
November at the Bodley Gallery in
New York.

Marcel Duchamp: Poster for the

exhibition Ready-mades et éditions
de et sur Marcel Duchamp, Galerie
Claude Givaudan, Paris, 8 June–
30 September 1967 (Archives Marcel
Duchamp).
 Yo Savy (née Yvonne Serre) with her husband, Jacques Savy, Teeny,
and Marcel Duchamp (her father) at the Savy’s home, Autheuil-en-
Valois, circa 1966–1967 (Archives Marcel Duchamp).

Marcel Duchamp: Text in homage to Yo Savy in the brochure for the

exhibition Yo Sermayer, Bodley Gallery, New York, 14–25 November 1967
(Archives Paul B. Franklin).
1968
In February, the Duchamps and
John Cage participate in Reunion,
a musical performance coordinated
by the latter in Toronto. The
Duchamps go to Buffalo in March
to see the premiere of Merce
Cunningham’s dance Walkaround
Time. Jasper Johns designs the
sets, which are based on the Large
Glass. In the early hours of 2
October, after dining with Man
Ray, his wife, Juliet, and Robert
and Nina Lebel, Duchamp dies at
his home in Neuilly-sur-Seine. His
ashes are interred in the family
plot in Rouen. His epitaph, which
he wrote, reads: “d’ailleurs,
c’est toujours les autres qui
meurent” (besides it is always
the others who die).

1969
Respecting Duchamp’s wish that
Étant donnés be publicly unveiled
only after his death, the Philadelphia
Museum of Art inaugurates the
work on 7 July. Arturo Schwarz
publishes a catalogue raisonné
devoted to Duchamp.

Marcel Duchamp: Le Bec Auer,

1968 (Archives Marcel Duchamp).
1973–1974
The Philadelphia Museum of  Art
and the Museum of Modern Art
in New York co-organize the
first posthumous retrospective of
Duchamp’s work.
(Preceding double page) Marcel
Duchamp: Étant donnés: 1° la
chute d’eau, 2° le gaz d’éclairage,
1946–1966, views of the exterior
and interior (Philadelphia Museum
of Art).

1977
As its inaugural exhibition, the
new Musée national d’art moderne,
Centre Georges Pompidou in
Paris presents the first French
retrospective of Duchamp’s work.

Poster for L’Œuvre de Marcel

Duchamp, the inaugural exhi-
bition of the Musée national
d’art moderne, Centre Georges
Pompidou, Paris, 1 February–
2 May 1977 (Collection Jean-Luc
Thierry).
Véra Cardot and Pierre Joly: Marcel Duchamp with his back to the
door that is neither opened nor closed, 11 rue Larrey, Paris, 2 May
1967 (Bibliothèque Kandinsky, Musée national d’art moderne, Centre
Georges Pompidou, Paris).
To all appearances, the artist acts like a mediumistic being
who, from the labyrinth beyond time and space, seeks his
way out to a clearing.
If we give the attributes of a medium to the artist,
we must then deny him the state of consciousness on the
esthetic plane about what he is doing or why he is doing it.
All his decisions in the artistic execution of the work rest with
pure intention and cannot be translated into a self-analysis,
spoken or written, or even thought out.
[...] In the last analysis, the artist may shout from all
the rooftops that he is a genius; he will have to wait for the
verdict of the spectator in order that his declarations take a
social value and that, finally, posterity includes him in the
primers of Art History.
I know that this statement will not meet with the
approval of many artists who refuse this mediumistic role
and insist on the validity of their awareness in the creative
act—yet, art history has consistently decided upon the virtues
of a work of art through considerations completely divorced
from the rationalized explanation of the artist.
[...] In the creative act, the artist goes from intention
to realization through a chain of totally subjective reactions.
His struggle toward the realization is a series of efforts,
pains, satisfactions, refusals, decisions, which also cannot
and must not be fully self-conscious, at least on the esthetic
plane.
The result of this struggle is a difference between the
intention and its realization, a difference which the artist is
not aware of.
Consequently, in the chain of reactions accompanying
the creative act, a link is missing. This gap which represents
the inability of the artist to express fully his intention; this
difference between what he intended to realize and did
realize, is the personal “art coefficient” contained in the
work.
In other words, the personal “art coefficient” is like an
arithmetical relation between the unexpressed but intended
and the unintentionally expressed.
To avoid a misunderstanding, we must remember that
this “art coefficient” is a personal expression of art “à l’état
brut,” that is, still in a raw state, which must be “refined”
as pure sugar from molasses, by the spectator; the digit of
this coefficient has no bearing whatsoever on his verdict.
The creative act takes another aspect when the spectator
experiences the phenomenon of transmutation; through the
change from inert matter into a work of art, an actual transub-
stantiation has taken place, and the role of the spectator is
to determine the weight of the work on the esthetic scale.
All in all, the creative act is not performed by the
artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with
the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner
qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative
act. This becomes even more obvious when posterity gives its
final verdict and sometimes rehabilitates forgotten artists.
This chronology was written by Paul B. Franklin.

Aube Breton-Elléouët, Oona Elléouët, and Seven Doc would like

to thank all those who made this publication possible, especially
Jacqueline Matisse Monnier.

All artworks by Marcel Duchamp: © Succession Marcel Duchamp,

2009, ADAGP, Paris.

All artworks by Man Ray: © Man Ray Trust, 2009, ADAGP, Paris.

© All rights reserved. Every effort has been made to contact copyright
holders of the works reproduced herein. We apologize for any omissions
that inadvertently may have occurred.

Seven Doc layout and graphic design: Thomas Castex

(Front cover) Katherine Dreier: Marcel Duchamp on the balcony of

the Hôtel Brighton, rue de Rivoli, Paris, summer 1924 (Philadelphia
Museum of Art Archives).

(Back cover) Marcel Duchamp: Rotative demi-sphère (optique de

précision), 1924 (Museum of Modern Art, New York).

Man Ray : Marcel Duchamp, circa 1925 (Private collection).