Marcel Duchamp
France (1887—1968)Marcel Duchamp was born in Blainville-Crevon, Normandy, in 1887. After moving to Paris in 1904, he began exhibiting paintings influenced by Post-Impressionism and Fauvism, before turning to Cubism. In 1912 he withdrew Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 from the Salon des Indépendants following objections from fellow Cubists. The painting gained international attention at the Armory Show in New York in 1913. Duchamp moved to New York in 1915, where he became part of the avant-garde alongside Man Ray, Beatrice Wood and Katherine S. Dreier. In 1917 he submitted Fountain, a urinal signed “R. Mutt,” to the Society of Independent Artists’ exhibition. The work was not displayed, challenging conventional definitions of art. In 1920 he collaborated with Dreier and Man Ray on the Société Anonyme, an organisation dedicated to modern art. During the late 1920s and 1930s, he devoted much of his time to chess while continuing to pursue artistic projects. From 1915 to 1923 he worked on The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, known as The Large Glass. Between 1946 and 1966 he secretly created Étant donnés, which was unveiled at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1969, after his death in 1968.
