Suzanne Duchamp's Readymade Paintings

Abstract

Suzanne Duchamp pushed the boundaries of painting by incorporating unorthodox, machine-made materials within interconnected material geometries. Focusing on Un et une menaces (1916), Radiation de deux seuls eloignes (1916–20), and Le Readymade Malheureux de Marcel (1920), this article describes Duchamp’s particular way of integrating readymades into her artwork and reveals her ability to transform modern, store-bought elements into interwoven pictorial structures. Drawing Duchamp into dialogue with the Dada group, this article examines the geometric forms and materials of her artworks as a body of work in their own right and in conjunction with those made by her peers, particularly her husband Jean Crotti, her brother Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Beatrice Wood, and Man Ray. It positions Radiation as Suzanne Duchamp’s major work from this period, which she worked on in a durational manner in line with the approach taken up in Marcel Duchamp’s making of The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelor’s, Even (1915–23) in New York. This close consideration of Duchamp’s distinct way of combining unorthodox materials with traditional pictorial mediums makes it possible to contextualize her within early explorations of the readymade taking place between New York, Zurich, and Paris. A better understanding of Duchamp’s individual approach will shed greater light on her own work and on the ideas that she shared with other Dadaists. This is because the particular way that Duchamp integrated readymades within the mediums of painting, drawing, and poetry arguably had an effect on the broader movement.