Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), whose "Nude Descending a Staircase" had caused an uproar at the New York Armory Show in 1913, was introduced to Man Ray by Walter Arensberg, the collector and host of informal salons for avant-garde artists at his West 67th Street apartment, soon after Duchamp moved to New York in 1915. Throughout their lives, the two artists remained close friends, accomplices in their assault on traditional art-world ideologies and art-making practices. Man Ray made dozens of portraits of Duchamp, documenting the latter's often changing persona. Here, in a fittingly ironic tribute to the iconoclasm of both artists, Man Ray presents Duchamp's profile in the softly focused, classicizing style of traditional commercial studio portraiture.
Artwork Details
- Title: Marcel Duchamp
- Artist: Man Ray (American, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1890–1976 Paris)
- Date: ca. 1920
- Medium: Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions: Image: 28.5 x 22.7cm (11 1/4 x 8 15/16in.)
Mount: 39.8 x 32.7 cm (15 11/16 x 12 7/8 in.) - Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Gilman Collection, Purchase, Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee Gift, 2005
- Object Number: 2005.100.252
- Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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