Artists of the 20th Century: Marcel Duchamp

Born in 1887 in France, Marcel Duchamp — painter, sculptor, and author — was associated with Cubism, Dadaism, and Surrealism, though he avoided any strict alliances. Duchamp's early works were Post-Impressionist in style, though he eventually turned toward the avant-garde. His most famous work, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 caused a furor at new York City's famous Armory Show in 1913. He painted very little after 1915, aside from his great masterpiece, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even(also known as The Large Glass), which he worked on until 1923. Duchamp's work is characterized by humor, a wide variety of media, and its incessant probing of the boundaries of art. Duchamp's legacy icludes the insight that art can be about ideas instead of objects, a revolutionary notion that would resonate with later generations of artists. As a sculptor, he pioneered a main artistic innovation of the 20th century: ready-made art. "Ready-Mades" were banal objects of every-day use, which he signed with his name and gave titles totally unconnected with their functional use. They demonstrated his profound contempt for the bourgeois conception of art. Includes spectacular images of his greatest work.