Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp was a French artist who was later nationalized American in 1955. He was born on July 28^th 1887 in Blanville, France. He started as a painter when he was 17 years old, but without committing to any artistic movement, it was something very particular and this is also what makes him a renowned artist in our time. We could say he was an experimental artist because his works have influenced Dadaism, surrealism, pop art and contemporary art, and also the 20^th century art.

In 1912 he presented his famous paint “Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2” (Nu descendant un escalier n° 2), which has become a very relevant work because of it shows cubism elements combined with some futurist in a sequence of objects that represents movement. It was originally rejected, but one year later it was exposed in the New York Armory Show where it received a good reception.

After 1915 he didn’t paint a lot, until 1923 when he created his master piece “The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even” (La mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même), most often called “The Large Glass”.  It is an abstract piece made on two panes of glass with materials such as lead foil, fuse wire, and dust. It was well received by the surrealists.

On sculpture, he was a pioneer in ready-made art, which consists in taking any object and by the artist’s disposition it becomes an art piece. In this case, Duchamp caught a bottle rack; it is considered the first readymade piece. He also used a urinal that was called “Fountain”, and from his point of view it was transformed in art.

There is another piece, the “Bicycle Wheel”, along with “The Large Glass”, were the bases for the kinetic works, it was started by Duchamp after he began losing interest on retinal art, but keeping his interest in visual phenomena.

Duchamp’s creative period was not too long; instead he left new artists in charge of continuing the movements he has created.

He changed art creation for chess, which adopted as semiprofessional occupation, but a few years later he began plunging into the anonymity with his wife Teeny Sattler.

He died on October 2^nd 1968 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France.

His grave bears the epitaph, "D'ailleurs, c'est toujours les autres qui meurent;" or "Besides, it's always other people who die."