Marcel Duchamp The La rg e Gla s s a n d R e l a t e d Wo rk s E i g h t ee n E tc h in gs 1 9 6 7
GOLD MAR K
Although Duchamp produced few works he is regarded as one of the most potent figures in 20th century art because of the originality and fertility of his ideas. His etchings are extremely scarce.
M a rc e l Du c h a m p
T h e L a rg e G la ss a n d R e la te d Wor ks E i g h t e e n E tc h in gs 1 9 6 8
GOLD MAR K 2009
M a rc e l Du c h a mp
The enigmatic and startlingly ground breaking Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), originally from France but living most of his life in New York, kept in close touch with Avant-garde European art between the wars. A friend of Dali, he was associated both with the Dada and Surrealist movements, and even created the first ‘readymade’ – The Bicycle Wheel on a Stool as early as 1913. His more infamous readymade, designed to shock the American public, was Fountain (1917) a signed urinal, which he entered under a false name for an art exhibition where he was one of the selection committee. His outraged letters of complaint to the newspapers, also under false names, helped to stir up the controversy. In this complete set of eighteen fine line etchings on hand made paper printed in 1967/68, Duchamp as always, presents us with a mixture of dreamlike mystery and humour.
Nine of the prints are based on his last great work before he gave up art to play chess in 1923. Now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and properly called The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even or the Large Glass, the original work is made from two sheets of glass carefully pressed together, trapping images formed from strips of lead and studio grime. Duchamp uses an arcane set of personal symbols to express male sexual frustration, including a chocolate grinder and filters (No. 8) together with female unavailability (No. 3). The mixture of semi abstract and organic imagery relates to his fellow artist Picabia’s paintings of machines that also have no logical function but are labelled Love or Passion. His obsessive and exhaustive notes of explanation on the different parts of this metaphorical sexual machine are entertaining, but often of little help: The motor with the feeble cylinders is a superficial organ of the bride; it
The L a rge Glass and R elat ed Wo r ks
The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even, or (The Large Glass), 1915-23. Reconstruction by Richard Hamilton, 1965-6. Tate Modern
is activated by the love gasoline, a secretion of the bride’s sexual glands and by the electric sparks of the stripping. This edition, hand printed by Giorgio Upiglio of Milan, is limited to just 150. The copper plates were all barred after printing (which means that the images can never be printed again). The other half of the series pokes fun at well-known works of art. Duchamp believed together with all avant-garde artists at the time that the bourgeois pretensions of fine art needed sending up. This was the artist who after all, famously drew a moustache on a copy of the Mona Lisa and added an obscene acronym below. In these prints he transforms Cranach’s Adam and Eve and Rodin’s The Kiss into
cheekily overt sexual images. The Louvre’s Valpincon Bather is being poked by what looks like a sink plunger while Ingres’ Oedipus, instead of answering the Sphinx, seems to be fondling the breasts of a female from Ingres’ other masterpiece, the Turkish Bath. However, one of these prints (No. 13) is taken from his own installation now in Philadelphia Museum Given: 1. The Waterfall 2. The Illuminating Gas. A nude, viewed only through a peephole, reclines in long grass holding a lamp aloft. This disturbing work, twenty years in the making, secretly completed in 1966 and reworked in this print two years later, provides a counterbalance to his Large Glass and is a much less complicated expression of the same deepest desires and obsessions. David Kirk, Artist, Head of History of Art at Uppingham School, 2009
to order phone 01572 821 424 4
Marcel D uchamp
1. The Large Glass,
35 x 23 cm,
ÂŁ1750 5
The L a rge Glass and R elat ed Wo r ks
2. The Bride, 6
26.5 x 11.5 cm,
ÂŁ1250
Marcel D uchamp
3. Top Inscription or Milky Way with the Nine Shots,
15.5 x 34 cm,
ÂŁ1250
has a centre fold as issued
7
The L a rge Glass and R elat ed Wo r ks
4. The Nine Malic Moulds and the Capillary Tubes, 8
13 x 17.5 cm,
ÂŁ950
Marcel D uchamp
5. The Sieves or Parasols,
17.5 x 13 cm,
ÂŁ950 9
The L a rge Glass and R elat ed Wo r ks
6. The Oculist Witness, 10
14 x 9 cm,
ÂŁ950
Marcel D uchamp
7. The Water-Mill,
24.5 x 13.5 cm,
ÂŁ1250 11
The L a rge Glass and R elat ed Wo r ks
8. The Chocolate Grinder and the Scissors, has a vertical fold as issued
12
25.5 x 32.5 cm,
ÂŁ1250
Marcel D uchamp
9. The Large Glass, with Missing Elements Added,
35 x 23.5 cm,
ÂŁ1950 13
The L a rge Glass and R elat ed Wo r ks
The only major set of etchings produced by Duchamp in his lifetime are the eighteen he made to illustrate Arturo Schwarz’s The Large Glass and Related Works (1968)
Marcel Duchamp was one of the most diverse, intriguing and prolific of artists, and the true Godfather of Dada. Whilst much of his famous output is readily known - the editions of his Boîte Verte or Green Box, 1934, a facsimile publication of notes he compiled for his masterwork, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, and his Boîte-en-valise, (Duchamp’s famous portable museum in a suitcase), it is his graphic work that remains less readily available. Primarily this is because although he produced or contributed to legendary periodicals such as The Blind Man (1917), New York Dada (1921) and designed the covers of various Surrealist publications, such as Minotaure (1935), VVV (1943), View (1945), Transition (1937), and George Hugnet’s La Septième Face du de (1936), virtually the entire corpus of Duchamp’s printed work exists
in the form of single etchings such as L’Équilibre (1958), Tiré à 4 Epingles (1959), Rébus (1961), Mirrorical Return (1964), and Pulled at Four Pins (1964). The only major set of etchings produced by Duchamp in his lifetime are the eighteen he made to illustrate Arturo Schwarz’s The Large Glass and Related Works (1968). The Schwarz-Duchamp collaboration is based on the notes Duchamp made during construction of the Large Glass. All unpublished notes were recovered by Duchamp in 1964, and from this collection Arturo Schwarz selected those most directly concerned with the Large Glass. Of the 18 original etchings, 9 illustrate the various components of the Large Glass, whilst the other 9 illustrate Duchamp's iconic re-making of master paintings, After Ingres, After Courbet, After Rodin, etc.
to order phone 01572 821 424 14
Marcel D uchamp
10. Selected Details after Cranach and Relâche,
34.5 x 23.5 cm,
ÂŁ1750 15
The L a rge Glass and R elat ed Wo r ks
11. Après l’Amour, 16
34.5 x 23 cm,
£1750
Marcel D uchamp
12. Selected Details after Rodin,
34.5 x 23 cm,
ÂŁ1950 17
The L a rge Glass and R elat ed Wo r ks
13. The “Bec Auer”, 18
34.5 x 23 cm,
£1750
Marcel D uchamp
14. Selected Details after Ingres (I),
34.5 x 23 cm,
ÂŁ1750 19
The L a rge Glass and R elat ed Wo r ks
15. The Bride Stripped Bare..., 20
34.5 x 23 cm,
ÂŁ1750
Marcel D uchamp
16. Selected Details after Ingres (II),
34.5 x 23 cm,
ÂŁ1750 21
The L a rge Glass and R elat ed Wo r ks
17. The King and the Queen, 22
26.5 x 11.5 cm,
ÂŁ1450
Marcel D uchamp
18. Selected Details after Courbet,
34.5 x 23 cm,
ÂŁ1750 23
The L a rge Glass and R elat ed Wo r ks
visit www.goldmarkart.com This original edition, on handmade paper specially manufactured by Filicarta of Cologno Monzese, is limited to 150 numbered copies. All prints are initialled in the plate. The etchings were pulled on the handpress of Giorgio Upiglio, Milan. The copper plates were barred after the printing which was completed in June 1968. We have one copy only of each etching. This set is numbered 58 of 150. A copy of the signed justification page will accompany each print.
All prices include framing, vat and uk delivery
to order phone 01572 821 424
The only major set of etchings produced by Duchamp in his lifetime are the eighteen he made to illustrate Arturo Schwarz’s The Large Glass and Related Works (1968)
Goldmark Gallery, Uppingham, Rutland, LE15 9SQ, 01572 821424 Open Monday to Saturday 9.30 - 5.30, Sunday 2.30 - 5.30 and Bank Holidays www.goldmarkart.com info@goldmarkart.com