Born 1887, Blainville-Creuvon, France. Died 1968, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France.
Duchamp’s first works were marked by impressionism, fauvism, and cubism, but he would quickly distance himself from these movements. In the 1910s his work mixed the abstract and the figurative. He was influenced by the writings of Jules Laforgue and Alfred Jarry, by old master painting, and by experiments in time-lapse photography. Starting in 1915, he lived between Paris and New York (where he promoted the European avant-garde). With 1917’s Fontaine, he invented the “ready-made,” an object from the quotidian presented as a work of art.