Yvonne and Magdeleine Torn in Tatters
Marcel Duchamp, American (born France), 1887 - 1968
Geography:
Made in France, Europe
Date:
1911Medium:
Oil on canvasDimensions:
23 3/4 x 28 7/8 inches (60.3 x 73.3 cm) Framed: 25 5/8 x 30 3/4 x 2 1/8 inches (65.1 x 78.1 x 5.4 cm)Copyright:
S© Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / Estate of Marcel DuchampCuratorial Department:
European Painting
1950-134-53Credit Line:
The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950
Made in France, Europe
Date:
1911Medium:
Oil on canvasDimensions:
23 3/4 x 28 7/8 inches (60.3 x 73.3 cm) Framed: 25 5/8 x 30 3/4 x 2 1/8 inches (65.1 x 78.1 x 5.4 cm)Copyright:
S© Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / Estate of Marcel DuchampCuratorial Department:
European Painting
* Gallery 181, Modern and Contemporary Art, first floor
Accession Number:1950-134-53Credit Line:
The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950
Label:
Duchamp created this composition from the floating forms of his younger sisters' profiles, paying close attention to their distinctive Roman noses and their long curly hair, which he rendered like cascading bunches of grapes. The disjunctions in scale between the four profiles, two for each sister, as well as the careful distribution of their forms over the entire canvas recall the torn or cut up pieces of paper that Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque used in their Cubist collages, as Duchamp humorously alludes to in the title, which suggests that his sisters have been similarly "torn in tatters."
Duchamp created this composition from the floating forms of his younger sisters' profiles, paying close attention to their distinctive Roman noses and their long curly hair, which he rendered like cascading bunches of grapes. The disjunctions in scale between the four profiles, two for each sister, as well as the careful distribution of their forms over the entire canvas recall the torn or cut up pieces of paper that Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque used in their Cubist collages, as Duchamp humorously alludes to in the title, which suggests that his sisters have been similarly "torn in tatters."
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