Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp was born on July 28, 1887, at Blainville-Crevon (near Rouen), France. Duchamp was the third of six children born to M. Eugène and Madame Duchamp. From the early age Duchamp was exposed to arts, Madame Duchamp was a talented amateur musician, and her father had been a shipping agent with a strong interest in painting and engraving. Duchamp had two elder brothers, Gaston (who was born in 1875 and later took the name Jacques Villon, and was himself a famous painter) and Raymond Duchamp-Villon (born in 1876 and was an accomplished sculptor who died during World War I). Duchamp’s younger sister, Suzanne had an interest in arts and was a poetess.

In 1904 Duchamp joined his two elder brothers in Paris where he studied painting at the Academie Julian until 1905. During that time Duchamp drew cartoons and illustrations for satirical publications Courrier Francais and Le Rire. Duchamp began painting around 1908, his early works were Post-Impressionist in style. In 1909 Duchamp exhibited for the first time at the Salon des Indépendants and Salon d’Automne in Paris. In 1911 he was a member in the painters' circle known as the "Golden Section", together with La Fresnaye, Léger, Metzinger, Picabia, and others. Influenced by cubism Duchamp painted the picture "The Chess Players" and the first studies for his "Nudes descending a Staircase". Also, in the same year Duchamp created The Coffee-Mill.

Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2

In 1912, he painted his masterpiece Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 portraying continuous movement through a chain of overlapping cubistic figures. The painting was rejected by the Salon Des Indépendants. However, it was shown at a cubist exhibition in Barcelona, Spain, and in Paris at the Salon de la Section d'Or and subsequently created great controversy at the Armory Show in New York in 1913, which made Duchamp famous in America.

"Fountain"

"L.H.O.O.Q"

Duchamp gave up creative work in 1923 to organize exhibitions, edit a magazine, experiment with film and play chess. He became increasingly absorbed by chess and by 1928 was a member of the French Olympic team at Hague. In 1925 Duchamp suffered a tragedy when his mother died on January 29 and his father just a few days later on February 3. In 1927, Duchamp had a brief marriage to Lydia Sarazin-Lavassor, which only lasted a few months. He married again in 1954 to Alexina (Teeny) Sattler in New York. In the same year, Large Glass was installed permanently in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, together with a large number of his other works. Duchamp settled permanently in New York in 1942 and became a United States citizen in 1955.

During the 1940s, he associated and exhibited with the Surrealist émigrés in New York, and in 1946 secretly began Etant donnés: 1. la chute d’eau 2. le gaz d’éclairage… (Given: 1degree the waterfall, 2 degrees the illuminating gas…), a major assemblage on which he worked secretly for the next 20 years. It was installed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and shown publicly for the first time after his death.

While Duchamp’s work had an effect on the anti-arts movement, in 1962 he acknowledged failure, "I thought to discourage aesthetics... I threw the bottlerack and the urinal in their faces and now they admire them for their aesthetic beauty". Duchamp died at Neuilly on October 1, 1968 and is buried in Rouen, with an inscription on his grave in his own words: "D'ailleurs c'est toujours les autres qui meurent" (but it's always other people that die).