Early 1950s

Portrait of Marcel Duchamp

French (born Switzerland), 1878 - 1958

Jean Crotti, the brother-in-law of Marcel Duchamp, moved to New York from Paris in 1914 and rapidly became involved in the Dada movement. His first Dada work was a striking portrait sculpture of Duchamp made of metal and wire with glass eyes. The sculpture was lost or destroyed, but a photograph of it by Man Ray, this drawing, and another drawing in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, survive, along with Crotti's description of the sculpture as "an absolute expression of my idea of Marcel Duchamp. Not my idea of how he looks, so much as my appreciation of the amiable character that he IS."