Cover for Le Surréalisme en 1947
Marcel Duchamp
American, born France. 1887–1968
1947
A book cover in which Marcel Duchamp mounted a foam‑rubber breast and a patch of black velvet on a printed illustrated cover, making a small, tactile multiple that deliberately invites touch.
What hits you is the uncanny, yellowish breast rising from an irregular field of black velvet against the pale cardboard and the pasted label reading “PRIÈRE DE TOUCHER,” an absurd and intimate command to touch the object.
By grafting a readymade, sculptural element onto a printed book, Duchamp collapsed art and everyday object, challenging the passive gaze and anticipating conceptual and participatory practices in postwar art.
Medium
Multiple of foam rubber breast, velvet, and printed label mounted on cover from an illustrated book with eighteen lithographs, four etchings (two with aquatint), two woodcuts, one photogravure, and one ready-made object
Dimensions
cover (unfolded): 9 7/16 x 17 11/16 x 2" (24 x 45 x 5.1 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Henry Church Fund
Accession
343.1947.26
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
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