Raymond Duchamp-Villon
gigatos | February 16, 2022
Summary
Raymond Duchamp-Villon, born Pierre-Maurice-Raymond Duchamp in Damville, November 5, 1876 and died in Cannes, October 9, 1918 (at 41 years), is a French sculptor.
Raymond Duchamp-Villon was the second son of Eugène and Lucie Duchamp”s six children, four of whom would become accomplished artists:
While still young, his maternal grandfather Émile Frédéric Nicolle, a successful businessman and artist, taught art to his grandchildren. From 1894 to 1898, Raymond Duchamp-Villon lived with his brother Jacques in the Montmartre neighborhood while he studied medicine at the Sorbonne. In 1898, a rheumatic fever that left him partially disabled forced him to abandon his studies for a while. This unexpected event, which changed the course of his life, encouraged him to develop his interest in sculpture. He began by producing small statuettes.
Essentially self-taught, he nevertheless quickly attained a high level of skill and finesse. In 1902 and 1903, he exhibited at the Salon de la Société nationale des beaux-arts. To differentiate himself from his brother Marcel Duchamp, and in reference to his brother Jacques Villon, he began to sign all his works “Duchamp-Villon”.
His first exhibition was in 1905 at the Salon d”automne and an exhibition at the Legrip Gallery in Rouen with his brother Jacques. Two years later, they moved to the Parisian suburb of Puteaux where the three Duchamp brothers were part of the regular meetings of the group of artists and critics known since then as the Puteaux group. Raymond”s reputation was such that he was appointed to the jury of the sculpture section of the 1907 Salon d”automne. He was to play a major role in the advent of Cubism.
In 1911, he exhibited at the Gallery of Contemporary Art in Paris, and the following year his work was included in an exhibition organized by the Duchamp brothers at the Salon de la Section d”Or at the Galerie La Boétie. At the Salon d”Automne in 1912, he presented La Maison Cubiste (en), a project for a hotel with Cubist architecture, in which he associated André Mare and other members of the Section d”Or.
Each of the three Duchamp brothers then had the opportunity in 1913 to present his work at the Armory Show in Manhattan, which helped popularize modern art in the United States. That same year, he participated in exhibitions at the André Groult Gallery in Paris, at the Mánes Art Circle Gallery in Prague, and in 1914 at the Der Sturm Gallery in Berlin.
Assigned to the medical services of the French army during the First World War, he managed to continue working on his main sculpture, Le Cheval majeur, an original of which is now on display at the Art Institute of Chicago. In late 1916, he contracted typhoid fever while stationed in Champagne. He was evacuated to the military hospital in Cannes where his promising career came to an end.
His premature death at the age of 41 explains why Raymond Duchamp-Villon, considered one of the pioneers of modern sculpture, remains little known.
In 1967, his brother Marcel helped mount an exhibition in Rouen entitled “The Duchamps. Jacques Villon, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Marcel Duchamp, Suzanne Duchamp”. Part of this family exhibition was later shown at the Musée national d”art moderne du Centre Georges-Pompidou in Paris.
Also read, biographies – Henry II of France
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