(DUCHAMP, Marcel).

Marcel Duchamp (6 April-2 May 1959).

One black & white illus., text printed in many colors. Long folding sheet (222 x 164 mm. folded). New York: Sidney Janis Gallery, 1959.

The appealing invitation for Marcel Duchamp’s 1959 exhibition at Sidney Janis’s gallery, we locate just a handful of examples in American institutions. The opening was also the American launch of Robert Lebel’s Sur Marcel Duchamp published by Trianon Press.

Text from the invitation announcement: “This exhibition coincides with the publication of the first definitive book to appear on the work of Marcel Duchamp and presents original paintings and objects by the artist. Documentary material relating to the book and the book itself in both deluxe and regular editions will also be on view.”

On 12 April 1959 Howard Devree of the New York Times wrote: “Although Marcel Duchamp’s celebrated multiple nude on the staircase was a center of distraction in the Armory Show of 1913 and his work has been seen in many surrealist and dada exhibitions over the years, it has remained for Sidney Janis to give what is said to be the first one-man show devoted to Duchamp. It has been arranged coincidentally with the publication of an elaborate catalogue raisonne, the first definitive book on Duchamp, describing and reproducing every one of his paintings, drawings and constructions, together with many personal photographs and with contributions in the text by Andre Breton and others. The gallery show draws heavily on this material and includes the famous valise for transporting reproductions. And the noted staircase nude is accompanied by an equivalent dynamic photograph of Duchamp—clothed—for good measure.”

Based on a typewritten note found in the “Duchamp Research Portal” (collection no.: MAR_B044_F017_004), the Philadelphia Museum of Art loaned the following artworks from the Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection to Janis’s exhibition: Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 3 (1916), The Bride (1912), and the first study for Cemetery of Uniforms and Liveries (1913).

In excellent condition. We have located catalogued copies of this invitation at the following institutions: Art Institute of Chicago, Princeton, Southern Methodist, Kunsthaus Zürich, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, and The Menil Collection.

|| M. Affron, M. Kuo, & A. Temkin, eds., Marcel Duchamp (2026), p. 51–“To celebrate the release of [Sur Marcel Duchamp], Sidney Janis Gallery presents an exhibition of Duchamp’s work—his first solo show at a commercial gallery (April 6-May 2).”.