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Artist or Maker: Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)
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Provenance: Achim Moeller Fine Art, Ltd., New York.
Acquired from the above by the present owners, 2000.
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Exhibited: New York, Achim Moeller Fine Art, Ltd., Marcel Duchamp: The Art of Making Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, October 1999-January 2000, no. 117 (illustrated).
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Literature: A. Jouffroy, "Duchamp prince de l'insolence," Arts Loisirs, June 1967, no. 87, pp. 20-21 (another cast illustrated, p. 21).
A. Schwarz, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp, New York, 1969, no. 394 (another cast illustrated, p. 563).
J. Hobhouse, "A Private joke between myself and myself," ARTNews, April 1977, vol. 76, p. 41, no. 4 (original wax assemblage illustrated).
A. Schwarz, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp, New York, 2000, p. 867, no. 638 (another cast illustrated).
F.M. Naumann, Marcel Duchamp: The Art of Making Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, New York, 1999, pp. 272-273, no. 9.23-9.25 (plaster, wax, and other bronze casts, illustrated, p. 273).
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Notes: Property from the Francey and Dr. Martin L. Gecht Collection
Duchamp learned to play chess from his brothers and became a talented amateur who participated in championship tournaments. In 1932 he co-authored an important contribution on the subject of the endgame, Opposites and Sister Squares are Reconciled. "'Why isn't my chess playing an art activity,' Duchamp asked Truman Capote. 'A chess game is very plastic. You construct it. It's mechanical sculpture and with chess one creates beautiful problems and that beauty is made with the head and hands.'" (quoted in A. Schwarz, 1969, op. cit., p. 68). The present assemblage is composed of life casts made from Duchamp's face and Alfred Wolkenberg's right arm (Wolkenberg was director of Editions les Maîtres Ltd.), and the knight was cast from a piece in the artist's favorite chess set.
