Man Ray, Nude Descending a Staircase by Marcel Duchamp, ca.1920

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Gelatin silver print
photographed in 1920, printed in 1930

29.1 x 17.2 cm
11 7/16 x 6 12/16 in
framed: 52.6 x 42.4 x 3 cm

Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase is one of the most iconic works of the 20th century. It created a sensation when initially shown at the groundbreaking Armory Show in...

Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase is one of the most iconic works of the 20th century. It created a sensation when initially shown at the groundbreaking Armory Show in New York in 1913. Man Ray’s own visit to the Armory Show proved decisive to the development of his art, causing him to paint on a larger scale in a style that was the fusion of the bright colors of Fauvism with the broken planar structures of Analytic Cubism. Man Ray first picked up a camera in order to photograph his own paintings, disappointed as he was with photographic reproductions being done at the time. His photograph of the painting Nude Descending a Staircase arguably accentuates the painting’s sense of movement, a reminder of the chronophotography of Etienne-Jules Marey and Eadweard Muybridge that had attempted to capture motion in a still image. Man Ray would not have an opportunity to photograph the painting until 1919, when it was acquired by Duchamp’s patrons Walter and Louise Arensberg, whom Man Ray had first met with Duchamp four years earlier. Indicative of the great importance that Duchamp’s painting held for him, and his personal affection for the French artist, in the 1920s Man Ray displayed a reproduction of Nude Descending a Staircase on the wall beneath the staircase in his rue Campagne Première studio.

Provenance

Private Collection, Belgium
Man Ray Trust, Paris

Exhibitions

From Man Ray To Mariën: An Idea of Surrealism, MARUANI MERCIER, 2021, Brussels, Belgium
Man Ray & Sherrie Levine: A Dialogue through Objects, Images & Ideas, MARUANI MERCIER Gallery, 2015, Brussels, Belgium
Madrid, Paris & Berlin, 2007-2010

Literature

Vienne, 1996-97, fig. 10
Tokyo, 1996-97, p. 162
Tate, 2008, p. 90 (variant)
Madrid, 2007, p. 94

A Dialogue Through Objects, Images & Ideas: SHERRIE LEVINE, MAN RAY

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Man Ray United States, 1890-1976

Further images

Provenance

Exhibitions

Literature