''Étant donnés'' (''Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas'', French: ''Étant donnés: 1° la chute d'eau / 2° le gaz d'éclairage'') is

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

's last major artwork, which surprised the art world because it believed he had given up art for competitive chess which he had been playing for almost 25 years, following a prolific art career. He had been making work with the Surrealists when he made '' The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even'' (also known as ''The Large Glass'')."Collections Object: Étant donnés"
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Retrieved 23 November 2014. This work is a tableau, visible only through a pair of peepholes (one for each eye) in a wooden door, of a nude woman lying on her back with her face hidden, legs spread, holding a gas lamp in the air in one hand against a landscape backdrop. Duchamp worked secretly on the piece from 1946 to 1966 in his

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

studio."Marcel Duchamp: The Manual"
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Retrieved 23 November 2014. It is composed of an old wooden door, nails, bricks, brass, aluminium sheet, steel binder clips, velvet, leaves, twigs, a female form made of parchment, hair, glass, plastic clothespins, oil paint, linoleum, an assortment of lights, a landscape composed of hand-painted and photographed elements and an electric motor housed in a cookie tin which rotates a perforated disc. The Brazilian sculptor Maria Martins, Duchamp's girlfriend from 1946 to 1951, served as the model for the female figure in the piece, and his second wife, Alexina (Teeny), served as the model for the figure's arm. Duchamp prepared a "Manual of Instructions" in a 4-ring binder explaining and illustrating how to assemble and disassemble the piece.

Anne d'Harnoncourt Anne Julie d'Harnoncourt (September 7, 1943 – June 1, 2008) was an American curator, museum director, and art historian specializing in modern art. She was the director and CEO of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA), a post she held fro ...

, a young curator at the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...

and later its director, orchestrated the acquisition and transfer of the piece to Philadelphia. According to the artist's wishes that the work be installed and viewed after his death, Duchamp's widow

Alexina Duchamp Alexina "Teeny" Duchamp (née Sattler; January 6, 1906 – December 20, 1995) was the wife of Pierre Matisse, daughter-in-law of artist Henri Matisse, and second wife of artist and chess player Marcel Duchamp. Background She was born Alexina ...

and his step-son

Paul Matisse Paul Matisse (born 1933) is an artist and inventor known for his public art installations, many of which are interactive and produce sound. Matisse also invented the Kalliroscope. Early life and education Paul Matisse is the son of New York g ...

installed the work and made it available to the public at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1969, a year after Duchamp's death."Marcel Duchamp: Étant donnés"
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Retrieved 23 November 2014.

References and sources

References Sources *Tomkins, Calvin. ''Duchamp: A Biography'', Henry Holt and Company, Inc., 1996. *Hulten, Pontus (editor): ''Marcel Duchamp: Work and Life'', The MIT Press, 1993.
Peep Show, The Smart Set, October 7, 2009

* Banz, Stefan, ed., ''Marcel Duchamp and the Forestay Waterfall'', JRP, Ringier, Zurich.

External links

* Outside view o
''Etant donnés''
at the

. * Inside view o
''Etant donnés''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Etant Donnes 1966 sculptures Marcel Duchamp works Paintings in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art Nude art