Apolinère Enameled

Details

Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)
Apolinère Enameled
signed and numbered 'Marcel Duchamp 3/8' (on the reverse); signed again, dated, numbered and inscribed 'Marcel Duchamp 1964 3/8 APOLINERE ENAMELED, 1916-17 EDITION GALERIE SCHWARZ, MILAN' (on a copper plaque on the reverse)
printed cardboard and tin
9 5/8 x 13 ¼ in. (24.6 x 33.8 cm.)
Readymade conceived in New York in 1916-1917; this example executed in 1964-1965 by Galleria Schwarz under the artist's supervision in a numbered edition of eight plus two artist proofs and two museum proofs

Provenance

Galleria Schwarz, Milan.
Private collection, Italy, by whom acquired from the above; sale, Sotheby's, Paris, 5 December 2012, lot 14.
Acquired at the above sale.

Literature

R. Lebel, Sur Marcel Duchamp, Paris, 1959, no. 130, pp. 39, 47, 102 & 168 (Readymade illustrated pl. 81, n.p.).
A. Schwarz, Omaggio a Marcel Duchamp, exh. cat. Galleria Schwarz, Milan, 1964, no. 9, p. 80 (another version illustrated n.p.).
R. Hamilton, Not Seen and/or Less Seen of/by Marcel Duchamp/Rrose Sélavy, 1904-1964, exh. cat., Cordier & Ekstrom, New York, 1965, no. 62 (another version illustrated).
A. Schwarz, Marcel Duchamp: 66 Creative Years, From the First Painting to the Last Drawing, exh. cat., Galleria Schwarz, Milan, 1972, p. 32 (other versions illustrated).
P. Cabanne, The Brothers Duchamp: Jacques Villon, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Marcel Duchamp, New York, 1976, no. 143, pp. 141-142 & 270 (Readymade illustrated p. 143).
G. Moure, Duchamp, exh. cat., Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, 1984, no. 107 (another version illustrated).
F.M. Naumann, B. Lorquin & P. Cabanne, Marcel Duchamp et ses frères, exh. cat., Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris, 1988, p. 84 (another version illustrated p. 85).
P. Cabanne, Duchamp & Co., Paris, 1997, pp. 106 &108 (Readymade illustrated p. 106).
A. Schwarz, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp, New York, 1997, no. 344c, pp. 647-648 (another version illustrated p. 647).
C. Tomkins, Duchamp: a biography, London, 1998, p. 177 (Readymade illustrated).
D. Judovitz, Unpacking Duchamp: art in transit, London, 1998, pp. 104-106 & 108-109 (Readymade illustrated fig. 46, p. 104).
F.M. Naumann, ed., Marcel Duchamp: The Art of Making Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, exh. cat., Achim Moeller Fine Art, New York, 1999, no. 108, p. 39 (another example illustrated).
J. Mink, Marcel Duchamp, 1887-1968: Art as Anti-Art, Cologne, 2006, pp. 92-93 (Readymade illustrated p. 92).

Special Notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

Brought to you by

Keith Gill

kgill@christies.com +44 (0)20 7389 2175

Lot Essay

Jacqueline Matisse Monnier and the Association Marcel Duchamp have confirmed the authenticity of this work.

Apolinère Enameled is one of an edition of eight, signed and numbered works created in 1964-5 that Marcel Duchamp had made after the ‘rectified ready-made’ of the same name, produced in 1916-17. This original ready-made work of art, now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, was an advertisement for the popular brand of household enamel paint Sapolin. The logo for the Sapolin paint company was a metal bedstead, which, in this advertisement, was shown being painted by a little girl with various colours of its enamel paint. As Duchamp recalled in a lecture he gave in St Louis in 1964, ‘I changed the lettering in the advertisement... misspelling intentionally the name of Guillaume Apollinaire and also adding the reflection of the little girl’s hair in the mirror: I am sorry Apollinaire never saw it – he died in 1918 in France’ (Marcel Duchamp, ‘Apropos of Myself’ held on 24 November, 1964 published in Marcel Duchamp, exh, cat., New York, 1973, p. 281).

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