About Marcel Duchamp
A French-American painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer, Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) had an estimated net worth of $3 million. One of the most significant artists of the 20th century, Marcel Duchamp made readymades popular. French artist Marcel Duchamp is frequently linked to the Dadaist and Surrealist movements.
He was born in Blainville-Crevon on July 28, 1887, and is regarded as one of the most significant artists of the 20th century. Eugene and Lucie Duchamp encouraged their children to spend time reading, painting, performing music, and playing chess while they were growing up, and Marcel Duchamp was reared in a family of artists in Normandy. Even though Duchamp wasn’t a particularly good student, he did demonstrate remarkable talent in mathematics and sketching as a young child, earning awards at school and receiving attention for these skills.
Marcel Duchamp’s Influence
By questioning accepted ideas about the creative process, his works and artistic philosophy had an impact on post-World War I Western art. He created comparatively few pieces of art throughout his career as an artist, and eventually he stopped creating any at all in favor of chess.
His first piece of art that generated controversy was Nude Descending a Staircase, which shows a nude woman walking down a staircase in a mechanistic fashion. He studied art at The Académie Julian. This piece demonstrates how Duchamp was influenced by cubism and futurism at the time and features fragmentation-like aspects.
The Readymades and Marcel Duchamp
His readymades, which he selected from among found objects and displayed as art, are what he is best known for. Readymades is a phrase he coined to describe mass-produced commonplace items that the artist elevated to the rank of artworks by placing them in an artistic context. The readymades challenged the idea of art itself.
One of the earliest readymades displayed was Bottlerack, a straightforward bottle drying rack bearing Duchamp’s signature. The urinal Fountain, which he signed with one of his aliases, R. Mutt, came next. Among art students all around the world, this is possibly his most well-known and extensively studied work.
Duchamp argued that art should be a mental expression. For generations of artists who defied convention and were dedicated to elevating art to new conceptual and intellectual heights, he became virtually a cult figure.
