Marcel Duchamp
Philadelphia Museum of Art
October 10,
2026 - January 31, 2027
Reviewed by Ed Voves
Original Photography by Anne Lloyd
The other day, I saw a nude descending the staircase of the Great Stair Hall of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I wasn't the least bit startled or amazed at the sight.
The "nude" was a digital projection of the celebrated painting by Marcel Duchamp. The original, Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2) painted by Duchamp in 1912, is one of the most cherished works of art in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA).
Nude Descending a Staircase is currently one of the anchor works of a massive exhibition at the PMA devoted to Duchamp's controversial career. Three hundred paintings, drawings, sculptures, prints and photos are displayed, along with replicas of the once notorious "Readymades".
Marcel Duchamp is a very important exhibition for the PMA, both for the content on view in the exhibit galleries and for the foundational role that Duchamp's works have played in securing the Philadelphia Museum of Art's reputation as a great museum.
After opening its neo-classical main building (replacing an earlier structure) in 1928, the PMA struggled to survive the Great Depression and the World War II years. In 1950, thanks to the efforts of Fiske Kimball, the dynamic head of the PMA, the celebrated Arensberg collection of Modern art was bequeathed to the museum. Over 1000 works of art entered the PMA collection, paintings by Matisse and Picasso, sculptures by Brancusi and works of all kind by Duchamp. Lots and lots of Duchamps.
The Marcel Duchamp exhibition previously appeared at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City during the past summer. A collaborative effort by the PMA and MOMA, the exhibition is the first, major survey of Duchamp's life and career since the 1973 retrospective, five years after his death. That exhibition was also organized by these two institutions.
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The curatorial team, Matthew Afron of the PMA and Ann Temkin and Michelle Kuo of MOMA, has assembled an encyclopedic display of Duchamp's oeuvre which we are unlikely to see again for many years to come.
MOMA's exhibit space was graced by pristine white walls (except for one gallery) and bright lights. It was an appropriate forum for considering the cultural impact of one of the most influential pioneers of Modernism.
The PMA galleries stressed a different, more inscrutable Duchamp. With an abundance of darkened walls and a subdued ambiance accentuated by rows of glittering track lights, Duchamp the Magus of Modern Art held court.
Which of the two personas was the "real" Duchamp? Or was he neither?
Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) was the youngest of three brothers of a well-to-do French family from Normandy. All of his male siblings were artistically gifted, as was his sister, Suzanne, who created an impressive body of work related to the early surrealist movement, Dada. It was Duchamp's brother, Raymond who scored the first major success of their talented family, with several striking Modernist sculptures. Tragically, Raymond died while serving as a medic during World War I.
Duchamp's date of birth, 1887, is significant. So is the year of his first paintings executed to a highly professional standard - in a style recalling Bonnard - 1910.
Duchamp was born the year following the last Impressionist salon. By the time Duchamp painted notable portraits of family members (above), Picasso was adapting Cubism to portraiture. One art movement after another had taken center stage during these years. Each had excited expectations of enduring success, only to lose momentum to the next "big thing."
Duchamp was, thus, a third generation Modernist. He earnestly responded to the latest revolutionary techniques. But the shifting tides of radical innovation soon made his early work appear out-of-date almost as soon as the paint dried.
In 1911-1912, Duchamp embraced Cubism and began to hit the mark. A striking Cubist painting, with one of the first of his cryptic titles, is particularly revealing of the transitional development of his work.
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While Duchamp was completing The King and Queen Surrounded by Swift Nudes in 1911, he began working on the first version of much more important painting, Nude Descending a Staircase (No.1). The canonical version (No. 2), was unveiled in 1912. A final rendition, mostly drawn with pencil and pen and ink, was executed in 1916. All three are on display in the PMA exhibition.
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Nude Descending a Staircase (No.2) was a remarkable achievement. However, other artists in Europe were also attempting to depict the effect of rapid, sequential movement in their paintings. This was especially true of the Italian futurist, Giacomo Balla. As a result, Nude Descending a Staircase (No.2) was initially received in French cultural circles with some doubts about its status as a Cubist work of art. The controversy, however, soon subsided.
The reaction in the United States, when Nude Descending a Staircase (No.2) was displayed at the 1913 Armory Show in New York City, was an entirely different matter.
The degree of hostility, outrage and denunciation which Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2) generated at the Armory Show is hard to credit today. The gallery where the painting was displayed was popularly known as the "chamber of horrors." Fortunately, for Duchamp, two Americans did favor this controversial work of art.
Walter and Louise Arensberg were an art-loving couple whose New York City apartment was the epicenter of interest in Modern art in America during the early years of the twentieth century. Walter was a chess enthusiast, like Duchamp. Louise was passionate about art. When Duchamp traveled to the U.S. in 1915, the Arensbergs embraced him as a personal friend and began purchasing his art for their collection.
Upon reaching New York, Duchamp was amazed at the welcome he received, considering the notoriety of Nude Descending a Staircase (No.2). A New York art gallery offered him $10,000 per year for his finished canvases. No doubt, the gallery owner envisioned sales of Cubist works to the Arensbergs and like-minded American enthusiasts for Modernism. Duchamp declined, claiming he was working on an experimental painting on glass.
Duchamp was, indeed, already engaged in creating such a work, initially called The Large Glass. But there was an additional, more deep-seated reason for not accepting a gallery contract.
Painting was "washed-up", Duchamp confided to his friend, Constantin Brancusi, after visiting the Paris Air Show of 1912 where he studied the mechanics of an aircraft propeller. How could an oil-on-canvas compete with an airplane?
This huge, fragile work reputedly dealt with frustrated sexual desire. If this actually was the theme, it could only be guessed-at, given the obscure imagery painted on to the glass. The incomprehensible alternate title, The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelers, Even, did little to resolve the mystery.
Duchamp stopped working on The Large Glass in 1923, only to spend years fixing it after it was badly damaged in transit following a museum display in 1927.
Had Duchamp completely abandoned art for chess-playing (first with Walter Arensberg, then competitively, as he did later), it is doubtful if he would merit more than a passing mention in art histories. But one thing can be stated with certitude. It was not Bride Stripped Bare or bizarre machinery serving no clear purpose which have secured Duchamp's place in the pantheon of Modern Art.
It was the Readymades.
There they are in the PMA's exhibition galleries - or rather replicas of the long-lost original Readymades. Massed produced "things" of everyday use, rather than unique products of human genius.
Objects of ridicule and loathing to some, venerated talismans of the revolt against Classicism and commercialism to others. The curators sensibly place the Readymades on view, without commentary or vintage photos to help us appreciate their "shock of the new" impact when Duchamp first displayed them.
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Judge for yourself. That is what Duchamp said was his intention, to "de-deify" the artist, giving the spectator the opportunity to decide if the mustache and goatee on a cheap print of Mona Lisa is in the same category as the original in the Louvre.
And then, there is Fountain. Judge for yourself? How can one do that for an object which is clearly not a work of art, even in reproduction?
According to text book versions of Modern art history, Fountain represents the birth of Conceptual Art. In the spring of 1917, Duchamp submitted this Readymade anonymously to the first exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists, of which he was an official. His intentions in doing so have been endlessly debated. If we accept the ideals of Conceptual Art, then Duchamp likely intended to make a statement that the idea behind a work of art is what is important, more than the actual work, itself.
Accepting this premise, the concept of an everyday, mass-manufactured object - even a urinal - can be a legitimate part or element of artistic discourse. Duchamp, the daring originator of this train of thought, is now extolled as the "Father of Conceptual Art."
However, a growing body of evidence, suggests that Duchamp was not the originator of Fountain, either as an idea or the actual urinal purchased from a hardware store. A German woman, Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, active in the radical Dada group in New York, is now widely held to be the person responsible for this revolutionary - or revolting - escapade.
Dada artists and poets like von Freytag-Loringhoven were in open rebellion against the unspeakable slaughter and stupidity of World War I. Duchamp was very active in Dada circles in New York, as his sister, Suzanne, was in Paris.
Duchamp's role in the use of Readymades is best interpreted against the background of World War I, which the U.S. entered in April 1917. Duchamp's motivation for submitting Fountain was surely a brash and defiant repudiation of the escalating horror of his era.
However, by asserting that anything can be art by virtue of the concept behind it, Duchamp bequeathed a problematical legacy for artists following his lead.
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This point is forcefully made in the perceptive entry on Duchamp in The Oxford Dictionary of Art, third edition, 2004. While acknowledging that "Duchamp's iconoclasm and experimental attitude have been enormously influential...", the Oxford entry concludes with the unsettling comments:
[Duchamp's] wit and irony have been sadly lacking in most of his followers, however, and it could be argued that his influence has been disastrous, encouraging people of no discernible talent to believe that anything they do, say, or think is worthy of attention as art.
Strong words, indeed, and ones that, perhaps, we would rather not hear. But as I continue to reflect upon the truly great Marcel Duchamp exhibition at the PMA, these are words that I find impossible to easily dismiss from my mind.
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Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved Original photography, copyright of Anne Lloyd
Introductory Image: Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) View of the Great Stair Hall and staircase of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2), 1912.
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) Gallery view of Marcel Duchamp at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) The curatorial team of the Marcel Duchamp exhibition. From left, Matthew Afron, PMA, Ann Temkin & Michell Kuo, MOMA
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) Gallery views of the Marcel Duchamp exhibit, showing (from top, left) Rotary Glass Plates (1920), Yale University Art Center & Rotary Demisphere (1925), Museum of Modern Art; Box in a Valise, Series F (1935-1941), Alychio Art Collection/Marc Coucke, Belgium; Photo from Andy Warhol's 16mm. silent film of Marcel Duchamp (1966), collection of The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh.
Jonathan Dorado, Photo (2026), courtesy of MOMA. Gallery view of Marcel Duchamp at the Museum of Modern Art, entrance to the exhibition galleries at MOMA, 2026.
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) Gallery view of Marcel Duchamp at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Andy Warhol's four minute silent film of Duchamp is being shown, at right.
Marcel Duchamp and his brothers. Marcel Duchamp (left), Jacques Villon (center) and Raymond Duchamp-Villon (right), Puteaux, France, c.1912. Photographer unknown. Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Art.
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) Duchamp's The King and Queen Surrounded by Swift Nudes, 1912.Oil on canvas: 45 1/8 x 50 3/4 in., (114.6 x 128.9 cm.) Philadelphia Museum of Art collection.
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) Marcel Duchamp's Paradise (Adam and Eve), 1910-11. Oil on canvas: 45 1/8 x 50 3/4 in., (114.6 x 128.9 cm.) Philadelphia Museum of Art collection.
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) The three versions of Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, 1911,1912, 1916. All three paintings are from the Philadelphia Museum of Art collection.
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) Installation view of Duchamp's The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass), 1915-1923, in the PMA's Duchamp Gallery. Oil, varnish, lead foil, lead wire and dust on two glass panels: 9 ft 1 1/4 in. x 70 in. x 3 3/8 in. (277.5 x 177.8 x 8.6 cm.) Philadelphia Museum of Art collection.
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) Gallery view of the Marcel Duchamp exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) A large scale replica, made in 1930, of Marcel Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q. (1919) Rectified Readymade: 25 1/2 x 19 in. (64.7 x 48.2 cm.) Centre Pompidou, Paris. Musee national d'art moderne - Centre de creation industrielle
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) A replica (made in 1950) of Duchamp's Fountain Readymade (1917). Porcelain urinal: 12 x 15 x 18 in. (30.5 x 38.1 x 45.7 cm.) Philadelphia Museum of Art Collection.
Anne Lloyd, Photo (2026) Gallery view of Marcel Duchamp at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 1951 replica of the 1913 original Bicycle Wheel appears at center. Metal wheel mounted on wooden stool: 51 x 25 x 16 1/2 in. (129.5. x 63.5 x 41.9 cm.) From the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, NYC.
