Marcel Duchamp: The Bachelor Stripped Bare

Alice Goldfarb Marquis

Hardcover | 16.21 x 2.84 x 23.42 cm | 240 pp

Museum of Fine Arts Boston | 2002 | 9780878466443

Marcel Duchamp: The Bachelor Stripped Bare is not the first full-length biography of Duchamp, but it is the first to present him in all his human contradictions and to take a refreshingly objective look at his real contribution to modern art.

The well-known facts are explored here: Duchamp's myriad personal relations (with family, lovers, collectors and artists ranging from Man Ray, Picabia and Breton to the Stettheimer sisters and the Arensbergs); the creation of major works such as the readymades and the Large Glass; his passion for chess and supposed abandonment of art. But beyond this, author Alice Goldfarb Marquis looks past the diffident, humorous mask that Duchamp wore with acquaintance and intimate alike, to explore the passions and insecurities that motivated many of his artistic and personal evolutions. She separates the artist from the con artist, to determine just how profound an influence Duchamp has really been.

Based on numerous unpublished sources and first-hand interviews, Marcel Duchamp: The Bachelor Stripped Bare stands as a groundbreaking contribution to the ever-burgeoning field of Duchamp studies.