Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2

On March 18, 1912, Marcel Duchamp received an unexpected visit from his two brothers, Jacques Villon and Raymond Duchamp-Villon, at his studio in Neuilly-sur-Seine. They informed their younger brother that the hanging committee of the Salon des Indépendants exhibition in Paris, which included themselves, Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, and others, had rejected his Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2. These Cubist painters had refused to display the painting on the grounds that "A nude never descends the stairs--a nude reclines." Although the work was shown in the Salon de la Section d'Or in October 1912, Duchamp never forgave his brothers and former colleagues for censoring his work.

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Courtesy of Philadelphia Museum of Art