MARCEL DUCHAMP

28 July 1887, Blainville, Normandy - 20 October 1968, Neuilly sur Seine, France

Studied at the Académie Julian, in Paris, and was also trained as a librarian.

In 1913 he went to New York and took part in the great Armory Show.

With Francis Picabia and Man Ray he started a movement which was, in some respects, the Dadaist movement in Europe.

After the war he returned to Paris being very active in the Surrealist movement  till 1925.

He was the inventor of 'ready-mades', mechanical objects which, deflected of the normal use, take on a new existence.

Originally he was a Cubist but came to occupy a special place of his own with some elements of Futurism; at the same time he was a forerunner of Surrealism.

Dulcinea Duchamp

"Young girl and man in spring", 1911

"To have the apprentice in the sun", 1914