Philadelphia Museum of Art
Marcel Duchamp
Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 3)
1916
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Marcel Duchamp
Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 3)
1916
Graphite, pen and black ink, black paint, colored pencil or crayon, and blue wash on gelatin silver photograph
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950
1950-134-60
Artist/maker
Marcel Duchamp
DETAILS
In 1916, Marcel Duchamp recreated his Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2) for his patrons Louise and Walter Arensberg, who had coveted the notorious painting since seeing it at the Armory Show in New York three years earlier. Given that the original was now owned by a San Francisco art dealer who did not want to part with it, Duchamp had a commercial photography studio enlarge a postcard image of the work to match the proportions of the original canvas. The colossal photograph was then meticulously retouched by the artist in a wide variety of mediums, including pencil, ink, watercolor, and pastel, to replicate the crisply delineated forms of the original composition.

Dimensions

58 5/16 × 36 1/8 inches (148.1 × 91.8 cm)

Format

Drawings

Location

Made in New York, United States
CREDITS & RIGHTS
© Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / Association Marcel Duchamp

ADMINISTRATIVE
INFORMATION

Source System ID

51451