Money is no object: by deciding early on that he would not depend for a living on sales of his work, Marcel Duchamp took a crucial step toward freeing his art from material constraints and the vicissitudes of commerce - Duchampiana II - Museum Jean Tinguely, Basel - Critical Essay

Art in America, March, 2003 by Francis M. Naumann

In the early 1960s, after some 40 years of having enjoyed a state of comparative anonymity in the world of contemporary art, Marcel Duchamp was suddenly--and somewhat unexpectedly--resuscitated. In hindsight, it is not hard to see why this happened. Newly emergent Pop artists, who selected their subjects from popular culture--often mass-produced consumer products--adopted the esthetic strategy of the readymade, which Duchamp had introduced 50 years earlier. When people discovered that Duchamp was still around to explain the importance of this historical precedent, they stood in line to ask him about it. There are some 40 to 50 interviews with the artist conducted during the last decade of his life, when he was well into his 70s and, so far as was publicly known, had not been actively making art for nearly a half century. When these interviewers realized that Duchamp had ceased artistic production for such a long period, they naturally wondered how he managed to support himself. At least one had the courage to ask. Francis Steegmuller, who conducted his interview on behalf of Show magazine, inquired: "If you've done nothing since 1923, what have you lived on?" Duchamp responded: "Tell Show I'll answer that one when I get a complete financial dossier concerning every member of the staff of Show." (1)

In any public interview, two subjects have until recently been considered off-limits: love and money. Having devoted considerable time and effort to investigating Duchamp's love life (insofar as it affected his artistic production) [see A.i.A., Apr. '01], I can now turn my attention to the latter, for I believe that Duchamp's disdain for the commercialization of art lies at the very heart of his work. How he dealt with money--both in his art and in his life--affected not only the esthetic implications of his work, but, as I have attempted to demonstrate elsewhere, the financial value assigned his work in today's modern-art market. (2) To begin with, however, it is worth attempting to answer the interviewer's question about Duchamp's personal finances. How exactly did he support himself all that time?

A few years after rebuffing Steegmuller, Duchamp was more forthcoming on the subject during an informative interview with the French art critic Pierre Cabanne. "Looking back over your whole life," Cabanne asked, "what satisfies you most?" After having admitted that he was lucky not to have needed to work for a living, Duchamp said, "I understood, at a certain moment, that it wasn't necessary to encumber one's life with too much weight, with too many things to do, with ... a wife, children, a country house, an automobile. And I understood this, fortunately, rather early." (3)

The moment to which Duchamp refers can be traced to the spring of 1912, when, at age 25, he attempted to submit Nude Descending a Staircase to the Salon des Independants. The hanging committee, which included Albert Gleizes and Henri Le Fauconnier, determined that the painting violated their doctrinaire view of Cubism, so they asked Duchamp's brothers, Jacques Villon and Raymond Duchamp-Villon, if they would intercede on the committee's behalf and arrange for the picture to be withdrawn. This rejection prompted Duchamp to begin his artistic life anew, charting a course for the future that would not require anyone else's approval. "It helped liberate me completely from the past," he told Cabanne. "[I thought,] all right, since it's like that, there's no question of joining a group. I'm going to count on no one but myself, alone." (4)

From this point onward, Duchamp's innate sense of independence came to the fore, and he was possessed by the desire to break free from artistic convention once and for all. Of course, many young artists share a similar sense of defiance, but unlike Duchamp, most do not enjoy the financial resources necessary to maintain such an elevated and highly idealistic position.

Whenever he spoke about financial matters, Duchamp warmly acknowledged the contribution of his father, Justin-Isidore (known as Eugene) Duchamp, who, from the very beginning, supported his decision to become an artist. This support was financial, as well as emotional. Duchamp's father was a notary, in those days a richly rewarding profession. French notaries had many responsibilities. Not only did they certify legal documents--deeds, wills and contracts of all types--but they were often the town's most informed and reliable financial advisers and received substantial compensation for their counsel. Exactly how much money Duchamp pere earned through his activities as a notary is difficult to estimate; suffice it to say that he supported his wife and six children rather handsomely, living in one of the most palatial houses in the town of Duchamp's birth, Blainville-Crevon, a hamlet about 20 minutes northeast of Rouen. By 1905, at the age of 57, Duchamp's father was able to retire from his practice and move the family base to Rouen, where, for his remaining years, he participated in regional affairs and was active in a variety of community organizations. (5)