Marcel Duchamp

Happy Birthday Marcel Duchamp!! Born in 1887, this French painter was associated with the Dada and Surrealist movements and is thought to have initiated many avenues in art. His brother Raymond Duchamp Villon was a sculptor. Duchamp's early work had ties to Cubism and certainly Futurism (Nude Descending a Staircase). Later he exhibited ready-made objects (urinal, hat stand) questioning the implications of Cubism. Dada was the natural progression of this thought...Dada "signifies nothing". He insisted art should be a "brain fact" not merely an imitation of reality and it is statements such as this that make us realize he was an intellectual artist influenced by Leonardo da Vinci. Bicycle Stand, 1913, his well-known found object sculpture represents the first kinetic sculpture. Duchamp eventually lost interest in art and became quite interested in chess, even playing competitively and writing as a chess journalist for a time.