“Nude descending a staircase”     “Etant Donnes”

Marcel Duchamp was a French-American painter, who led an exceptionally interesting life, even for an artist. While his art evolved during the cubist period, he was an artist who invented a style of his own. While he used cubist techniques fluidly, he preferred to combine them with his portray of motion, which created a more mechanical finish then was associated with cubism. He spent a good portion of his life retired from art, or so was believed by the art world, until one year after his death, his 20 year masterpiece, “Etant Donnes,” was revealed. His life was spent painting, collecting, and talking about art, yet his body of work is neither immense nor easy to comprehend. His mark on the art world is more through his consulting of surrealists in America.