Sonata

Gallery 281, Modern and Contemporary Art, second floor

Main Building

Sonata

1911

Marcel Duchamp (American (born France), 1887–1968)

In Sonata, a painting begun at the family home in Rouen, France, Marcel Duchamp shows his sisters performing a musical recital. Yvonne plays the piano, Magdeleine is on the violin, and Suzanne sits in the foreground, while their mother attentively listens from behind. The intertwined, symmetrical composition and atmospheric color tonalities of the painting bring the sisters’ two-part harmony to life in visual terms. This work marks the artist’s first attempts at Cubism—a style he initially championed and emulated along with his brothers, Jacques Villon and Raymond Duchamp-Villon, and a group of likeminded artists working in and around Paris during the 1910s.

Gallery 281, Modern and Contemporary Art, second floor

Object Details

Title:

Sonata

Date:

1911

Artist:

Marcel Duchamp (American (born France), 1887–1968)

Medium:

Oil on canvas

Dimensions:

57 1/8 × 44 5/8 inches (145.1 × 113.3 cm) Framed (shadowbox): 63 1/8 × 50 5/8 × 4 inches (160.3 × 128.5 × 10.2 cm)

Classification:

Paintings

Credit Line:

The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950

Accession Number:

1950-134-52

Geography:

Made in France, Europe

Provenance

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Gallery 281, Modern and Contemporary Art, second floor

Main Building

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