MarcelDuchamp

Marcel Duchamp was a French-American painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dadaism, and Surrealism. Born in Blainville-Montagne, France, in 1887, he was a highly influential figure in 20th-century art. Duchamp is perhaps best known for his readymades, ordinary manufactured objects designated by the artist as artworks. Fountain, a urinal signed "R. Mutt," is a prime example of this concept, challenging conventional notions of art and authorship. Other notable readymades include Bicycle Wheel and Bottle Rack.

Duchamp also explored concepts of chance, motion, and optical illusion in his paintings, such as Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2. This work, exhibited at the Armory Show in New York in 1913, caused a sensation and brought him considerable notoriety. He was a member of the avant-garde circles in Paris and later in New York, engaging with artists and thinkers who questioned traditional artistic values. His magnum opus, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass), is a complex mixed-media work that took years to complete and continues to be a subject of extensive interpretation. Duchamp's intellectual approach and his radical subversion of artistic norms profoundly impacted subsequent generations of artists and art theory. He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, in 1968.