Suzanne Duchamp-Crotti (20 October 1889 – 11 September 1963) was a French

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Pari ...

ist painter, collagist, sculptor, and draughtsman. Her work was significant to the development of Paris Dada and modernism and her drawings and collages explore fascinating gender dynamics. Due to the fact that she was a woman in the male prominent Dada movement, she was rarely considered an artist in her own right. She constantly lived in the shadows of her famous older brothers, who were also artists, or she was referred to as "the wife of." Her work in painting turns out to be significantly influential to the landscape of Dada in Paris and to the interests of women in Dada. She took a large role as an avant-garde artist, working through a career that spanned five decades, during a turbulent time of great societal change. She used her work to express certain subject matter such as personal concerns about modern society, her role as a modern woman artist, and the effects of the First World War. Her work often weaves painting, collage, and language together in complex ways.

Early life and education

Suzanne was born in

Blainville-Crevon Blainville-Crevon () is a commune in the Seine-Maritime ''département'' of the Normandy region of northern France. Geography A farming village situated by the banks of the river Crevon in the Pays de Caux, some northeast of Rouen, at the juncti ...

Seine-Maritime Seine-Maritime () is a department of France in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the northern coast of France, at the mouth of the Seine, and includes the cities of Rouen and Le Havre. Until 1955 it was named Seine-Inféri ...

in the

Haute-Normandie Upper Normandy (french: Haute-Normandie, ; nrf, Ĥâote-Normaundie) is a former administrative region of France. On 1 January 2016, Upper and Lower Normandy merged becoming one region called Normandy. History It was created in 1956 from two ...

Region of

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

, near Rouen. She was the fourth of six children born into the artistic family of Justin Isidore (Eugène) Duchamp (1848-1925) and Marie Caroline Lucie Duchamp (née Nicolle) (1860-1925), the daughter of painter and engraver Émile Frédéric Nicolle. Suzanne Duchamp-Crotti was the younger sister of famous artists

Jacques Villon Jacques Villon (July 31, 1875 – June 9, 1963), also known as Gaston Duchamp, was a French Cubist and Abstract art, abstract painter and printmaker. Early life Born Émile Méry Frédéric Gaston Duchamp in Damville, Eure, Damville, Eure, ...

(né Émile Méry Frédéric Gaston Duchamp), a painter and printmaker,

Raymond Duchamp-Villon Raymond Duchamp-Villon (5 November 1876 – 9 October 1918) was a French sculptor. Life and art Duchamp-Villon was born Pierre-Maurice-Raymond Duchamp in Damville, Eure, in the Normandy region of France, the second son of Eugène and Lucie Ducha ...

, a sculptor, and

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 ...

, a painter, sculptor and author. She was closest in age and temperament to Marcel Duchamp, forming and maintaining a close bond and emotional attachment with him throughout their lives. Scholars, such as

Arturo Schwarz Arturo Umberto Samuele Schwarz (2 February 1924 – 23 June 2021) was an Italian scholar, art historian, poet, writer, lecturer, art consultant and curator of international art exhibitions. He lived in Milan, where he amassed a large collection o ...

, have speculated that there may have been an incestuous relationship between the two, although that was influenced by Freudian school of thought at the time. She began her studies as a painter at the

École des Beaux-Arts École des Beaux-Arts (; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth centur ...

in her native Rouen when she was sixteen years old in 1905. Her early works reflected styles ranging from Intimism and Fauvism to

Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

and a conservative Cubism, often depicting family and childhood scenes around Rouen. From 1909-1910, Marcel and Suzanne participated together in the activities of the Société Normande de de Peinture Moderne, an artists' group based in Rouen. Through this group, she was exposed to avant-garde trends. At age 21, in 1911, she married a local pharmacist named Charles Desmares but quickly divorced, moving to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

to serve as a nurse during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, living in Marcel's apartment in rue la Condamine. She worked in the

Hôtel des Invalides The Hôtel des Invalides ( en, "house of invalids"), commonly called Les Invalides (), is a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France, containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as ...

, one of the largest French military hospitals. During this time, she continued to work as an artist, establishing a presence in the Parisian quarter of

Montparnasse Montparnasse () is an area in the south of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centred at the crossroads of the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the Rue de Rennes, between the Rue de Rennes and boulevard Raspail. Montparnasse has bee ...

and often asking Marcel for feedback or advice.

Early work

In late 1915, Suzanne went to clear out Marcel's studio in Paris and this is when/where she first learned about his readymades. Between 1916 and 1921 she produced a significant body of work in a formal language that has come to be called 'mechanomorphic' - images taken from commonplace mechanical or technological objects arranged to describe or infer human agency, desire or behavior. The work of

Francis Picabia Francis Picabia (: born Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia; 22January 1879 – 30November 1953) was a French avant-garde painter, poet and typographist. After experimenting with Impressionism and Pointillism, Picabia became associated with Cubism ...

typifies the mechanomorphic tendency. In a letter from Marcel written in January 1916, Marcel elaborated on his concept of the ready-mades and mentioned the Bicycle Wheel and the Bottlerack which she should have encountered in the studio. He asked her to complete one of them by adding the inscription "d'après Marcel Duchamp," which translates to "after Marcel Duchamp." This collaboration with Marcel exhibited his trust in Suzanne about her openness towards radical art production. In 1916, Suzanne met Jean Crotti, an artist who worked in the same studio as Marcel. During this time is when her first surge of activity occurred, creating some of her best work. She produced "Un et une menacés," "A Threatened Male and Female" which references mechanical symbolism as well as real machine parts, which greatly lends itself to the Dadaist movement. One of her most noteworthy works is
Multiplication Broken and Restored
'' completed in 1919. The composition contains Dadaist imagery with man-made objects such as a tower and cityscape. It is also believed that this piece comes directly from her private experience rather than being a severe critique of cultural norms. After the war ended, Suzanne and Jean married in Paris in 1919. As a wedding present, Marcel sent them instructions for a readymade which involved suspending a geometry textbook on the porch and letting the wind and rain gradually tear it apart. During this time, Dada was gaining traction in Paris due to figures like

Tristan Tzara Tristan Tzara (; ; born Samuel or Samy Rosenstock, also known as S. Samyro; – 25 December 1963) was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, comp ...

. Jean and Suzanne were not very involved until 21, but both exhibited three works in the prestigious Salon des Indèpendants, alongside artists such as

. The art emphasized was that of the provocative mecanomorphic style. After this, Suzanne continued to work on her dadaist oeuvre, creating more delicate watercolor or gouache paintings. One of these paintings is "Marcel's Unhappy Readymade," depicting the geometry textbook she received from him as a gift. Interestingly, Suzanne inverted the painting so that it was presented upside down. Completed in 1920, her work
Ariette of Oblivion in the Thoughtless Chapel
' is regarded as the strongest Dadaist work that she created with seemingly nonsense inscriptions and mechanical imagery. However, much like
Multiplication Broken and Restored
', the inspiration for this piece emerged from the devotion she experienced in her relationship. This personal perspective runs contrary to the Dada sentiment of criticizing social conventions and undermining culture. In 1921, Jean and Suzanne sign, along with 20 other artists, the ''Dada souléve tout,'' a manifesto created by

to rebuke the increasingly fascist Italian

Futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abo ...

Marinetti Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti (; 22 December 1876 – 2 December 1944) was an Italian poet, editor, art theorist, and founder of the Futurist movement. He was associated with the utopian and Symbolist artistic and literary community Abbaye ...

. In April 1921, she exhibited with Crotti at the Tabu exhibition the Salon d'Autonme, (at the Galerie Montaigne in Paris); this was a few weeks before the Dada Salon at the same location. In later years, Duchamp and Crotti moved further away from Dada calling their work 'Tabu'. The Tabu pieces were more geometric and abstract, seeking certain universal tropes, but still reveal a highly personalized symbolic language. Tabu works drew on a range of domestic or everyday issues, simplified and combined in often striking ways. These works never brought the acclaim of Duchamp's earlier mechanomorphic pieces and are not discussed widely in literature on the artist.

Later life

Throughout her life, Suzanne continues to participate in exhibitions, such as the "Femmes Peintures Français" exhibition at Galerie Barbazanges, organized by women artists wanting recognition in the art world. She also exhibited along with

Marie Laurencin Marie Laurencin (31 October 1883 – 8 June 1956) was a French painter and printmaker. She became an important figure in the Parisian avant-garde as a member of the Cubists associated with the Section d'Or. Biography Laurencin was born in Paris ...

in "Les Femmes Artistes d'Europe" at the Musée du Jeu de Paume in 1937. In 1945, after the war, Suzanne Duchamp becomes a member of the Union des Femmes Peintres et Sculpteurs and regularly exhibited landscapes, portraits, and flower still lifes at its salons. In 1967, in Rouen, France, her brother Marcel helped organize an exhibition called ''Les Duchamp:

, Suzanne Duchamp''. Some of this family exhibition was later shown at the

Musée National d'Art Moderne The Musée National d'Art Moderne (; "National Museum of Modern Art") is the national museum for modern art of France. It is located in Paris and is housed in the Centre Pompidou in the 4th arrondissement of the city. In 2021 it ranked 10th in t ...

. She died in Neuilly-sur-Seine (Seine-Saint-Denis), France in 1963, within a month of being diagnosed with a brain tumor.

References

*Tomkins, Calvin, ''Duchamp: A Biography''. Henry Holt and Company, Inc., 1996.

External links

Tiny biography
*
Chef d'oeuvre accordéon
', Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut *
Sailboats
', Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut *
Head of a Man
', Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut
''Portrait of Suzanne Duchamp''
by Man Ray, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut
Suzanne Duchamp
WikiArt page {{DEFAULTSORT:Duchamp, Suzanne 1889 births 1963 deaths Dada French women painters People from Seine-Maritime 20th-century French painters 20th-century French women artists Sibling artists French dadaist Deaths from brain cancer in France