Marcel Duchamp, Curator

The artist Marcel Duchamp (1889-1967) moved from Paris to New York in 1915 and immediately befriended Louise and Walter Arensberg, the patrons who, with his guidance, would assemble the most complete holdings of his work anywhere. Remarkably, almost four decades later, Duchamp helped steer the Arensbergs’ entire art collection, including works by many others, to the Philadelphia Museum of Art as a gift.

Duchamp worked with members of the museum's staff in 1953 and 1954 to install the full Arensberg collection in the building's northwest wing. At Duchamp’s instigation, Gallery 282 was arranged with highlights from the collection by other modern artists. Duchamp positioned his own magnum opus, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (1915-23), a bequest from Katherine S. Dreier, his other great patron, at the room’s center, where it still stands today.

"Marcel Duchamp, Curator" illuminates the artist’s role in helping to bring the Arensberg collection to our museum, The installation evokes the original presentation of this gallery in 1954 by reuniting Duchamp’s monumental painting on glass with a selection of works from the Arensberg collection by such figures as Georges Braque, Robert Delaunay, Juan Gris, Piet Mondrian, Francis Picabia, and Pablo Picasso.

"Marcel Duchamp, Curator" coincides with a major retrospective of the work of Marcel Duchamp, co-organized by the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, during the exhibition’s initial stop at the former institution before it comes to ours in the autumn of 2026.