The Lovers
Raymond Duchamp-Villon
French, 1876–1918
1913
A shallow plaster relief that abstracts two entwined figures into interlocking, rounded volumes and carved planes as Duchamp‑Villon sought to translate Cubist ideas of simultaneity and movement into three dimensions.
You first notice a compact tangle of smooth, pebble‑like masses and sharp recessed cuts within a shallow field, so the figures read as both solid and hollowed surfaces sliding and nesting against one another.
Executed at the height of Cubism, the piece helped pioneer how sculptors could fragment the human body into geometric facets and rhythmic voids, bringing painting’s fractured vision into space and influencing later modernist abstraction.
Medium
Plaster
Dimensions
27 1/2 x 46 x 6 1/2" (69.8 x 116.8 x 16.3 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Purchase
Accession
258.1939
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
