Marcel Duchamp

1887–1968

Franco-American

Inventor of the ready-made and father of conceptual art. He elevated the ordinary object to artwork status through the simple gesture of choice, freeing art from all aesthetic constraint.

Key works

  • Fountain (1917)
  • L.H.O.O.Q. (1919)
  • La Mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même (1923)
"It is the viewers who make the painting."