Spellbound by Marcel: Duchamp, Love, and Art

by Ruth Brandon

In 1913 Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase exploded through the American art world.  This is the story of how he followed the painting to New York two years later, enchanted the Arensberg salon, and—almost incidentally—changed art forever. In 1915, a group of French artists fled war-torn Europe for New York.  In the few months between their arrival—and America’s entry into the war in April 1917—they pushed back the boundaries of the possible, in both life and art.  The vortex of this transformation was the apartment at 33 West 67th Street, owned by Walter and Louise Arensberg, where artists and poets met nightly to talk, eat, drink, discuss each others’ work, play chess, plan balls, organise magazines and exhibitions, and fall in and out of love.  At the center of all this activity stood the mysterious figure of Marcel Duchamp, always approachable, always unreadable.  His exhibit of a urinal, which he called Fountain, briefly shocked the New York art world before falling, like its perpetrator, into obscurity.  Many people (of both sexes) were in love with Duchamp. Henri-Pierre Roché and Beatrice Wood were among them; they were also, briefly, and (for her) life-changingly, in love with each other.  Both kept daily diaries, which give an intimate picture of the events of those years.  Or rather two pictures—for the views they offer, including of their own love affair, are stunningly divergent.   Spellbound by Marcel follows Duchamp, Roché, and Beatrice as they traverse the twentieth century. Roché became the author of Jules and Jim, made into a classic film by François Truffaut.  Beatrice became a celebrated ceramicist. Duchamp fell into chess-playing obscurity until, decades later, he became famous for a second time—as Fountain was elected the twentieth century’s most influential artwork. 

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Biography, History, Art History

255 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 1, 2022

Reviews

[Randy Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This isn’t a very good book. However, Ms. Brandon with her perspective and prose captures the gestalt of the age and these early 20th century Bohemians. What makes it not good is the author disinterest in what Duchamp did as an artist. At different points she veers into discussions of his art particularly at the end of the book but Duchamp wasn’t casual about his art and to get why he mattered requires more focus and staying power than this book possesses.

Beatrice Woods acts as the main character and the eyes through which we view Marcel and the many other fascinating folks who populated this world. There are the Picabias, the Arnesburgs, Pierre Roche and Man Ray all of them worthy in their own right of deeper examination but well drawn here to give a sense of how they contribute to this milieu.

Woods, Roche and Duchamp all became celebrated in their later years; Woods for her pottery, Roche for his novel, ‘Jules and Jim’ and Duchamp as the hero of the international art scene of the sixties. Even though the formative action of the story happens around WWI, the flourishing of these individuals comes about much later and gives the story an uplift unusual for most books about a group famous in their youth. For example, the Warhol factory produced hugely famous folks at the time, but other than Lou Reed, everyone else pretty much flamed out.

The most glaring omission in this book happens at the very end when the author is making the case for Duchamp as a great accidental artist who dropped out of the art scene and was re-discovered by it. When he supposedly ‘dropped out’ he spent many years designing and creating miniatures of nearly all his works in the form of his thrilling Green Box. Beyond that, during his lifetime he oversaw the completion of hundreds of these handmade reproductions of his works. For an artist consumed with the ideas of art and the production of art as ideas such a large scale project wasn’t an afterthought or simply a catalog. It was a critical part of his entire oeuvre giving someone a chance to connect and combine his profound ideas in furtherance of the idea of art. Marcel wasn’t consumed with being a famous artist, he was consumed with being completely and wholly his conception of an artist. This point the author completely misses.

[Tosh · Rating 3 out of 5]

On a gossip level, the book has its moments here and there, but it's not an essential history of that time, period, and characters. The sexual history is always interesting because it exposes other aspects of one's art, life, and surroundings. But there are passages in the book that are slow. At the end of the day, it is best to dwell on Duchamp's art and his own words.

[Rob Atkinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a good place to start if you are interested in learning more about Duchamp and his iconoclastic impact on modern art, or the Arensberg Circle and New York Dada. For that there are a number of better works out there.

Perhaps I feel that way as I own and have read the apposite bits of Roché’s unfinished autobiographical novel “Victor” and Beatrice Wood’s 1977 memoir “I Shock Myself”, so some of it felt like old news…but where is crazy Baroness Elsa? (“Marcel, Marcel, I love you like HELL, Marcel!”). And no mention of Duchamp’s New York Dada magazines “Rong Wrong”, or his later collaboration with Man Ray, “New York Dada”?

This account is more concerned with the affairs that swirled around Duchamp, who was a rather cold fish, apparently, though he seems to been supremely attractive to all the women, and even some of the ostensibly heterosexual men, in his artistic circle. He had sex, even apparent threesomes with some, but always seemed to remain very aloof emotionally.

Perhaps that explains why the mutually frustrating love affair between Henri-Pierre Roché and Beatrice Wood in that c. 1917 “Blind Man”/Independents Exhibition era takes up so much of the heart of this book, with hardly a mention of its eponymous genius.

There is some material on his second succés de scandale, “Fountain”, his inverted urinal ‘readymade’, and the controversy surrounding its rejection from the exhibition, which was supposed to accept every submission for display if the $6 fee for entry was paid. The second and last issue of Roché, Wood, and Duchamp’s “Blind Man” focused on that controversy, and was illustrated by a photo of the rejected artwork by Alfred Stieglitz, along with essays provided by fellow travelers in New York’s avant-garde defending and explaining the premise behind the work.

Of course the Stettheimer sisters and Katherine Dreier get a mention or two as well, but though besotted with Duchamp, they were significantly older, and never were contenders for his romantic attention. The former were salonnistes who amused him, (though Florine did paint, and is seeing a new vogue and reappraisal of her charming, naïve scenes of NYC and her interesting circle), and the latter was an important patron. They were good friends, but little more. There’s also no discussion of the ‘Societé Anonyme’ Dreier and Duchamp co-founded to support avant-garde art in the United States.

For those like me who’ve read a great deal about this brief but significant chapter in cultural history, Brandon’s closer parsing of events yields a few insights, but there are also so many missed opportunities, which would significantly enliven the story.

There’s a bit on Duchamp’s much later relationship with the South American surrealist sculptor Maria Martins (though it feels rather summary). There’s nothing really to illuminate his eventual marriage to “Teeny” Matisse either, except that it seemed to be congenial.

Of course in nearly every account Duchamp is rather inscrutable as a human being, which may be part of his fascination. But given the ostensible object of this account I’d hoped to get a little closer.

Those who are interested in a good biography of Duchamp should go to Calvin Tompkins’s “Duchamp”. For NY Dada and the Arensberg Circle there are also more than a few better titles out there. Maybe the catalogue of the early 2000s “New York Dada” Whitney exhibition is the best for the latter. “Three New York Dadas and the Blind Man” is the work I previously cited, with facsimiles of both issues of the “Blind Man” magazine, and the Roché and Wood accounts, bound together in a handsome little edition.

So — I’d say worth a look for those already well versed in the story, as they may pick up a few crumbs here and there, but I can’t recommend it generally.

[Anton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. It's gossipy, yes. I lived at 33W. 67th, many decades after the Arensbergs did. My sexlife wasn't great. I was shy. I was an alcoholic. I was young. If only I had followed Duchamp more closely. Well; eventually, I did. ....I'm grateful though to Ruth Brandon for writing a book I'm sure she knew everyone wouldn't appreciate. ....I for one have gone on to become fascinated with the love-lives of artists, writers, and poets. Like Mina Loy. I'd love to know more about Mina's relationship with Joseph Cornell. And her relationship with her Boxer boyfriend or was he husband? Did she bump him off? I want to know. I'm hoping that after I leave this planet, I will be given full access to the Akashic Records. I have some stuff I need to look up.

[Collazo · Rating 5 out of 5]

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[Suzanne Pender · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every book provides new and different perspectives on Duchamp. This book outlined his relationships with the Arensbergs, Beatrice Wood, Picabia and others, and provided a view into NYC and France at the time before and during the wars and beyond. Duchamp is inscrutable, but finds love in the end. I felt the book was poorly edited and seems to simply outline diary facts and a lot of information without bringing it to life. I was ready to get though it, but always grateful for new information on this community.

[lisa_emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gossipy and fun- a more personal look at Duchamp. I had no idea he had so many lovers. I always envisioned him as emotionally detached and intellectually aloof, engaging with everyone with an effect of distance. There are a few chapters that barely discuss Duchamp and focus more on his friends Beatrice Wood and Henri-Pierre Roché- so if you want only Duchamp, be prepared, you won't always get it. Most of the book focuses on Duchamp's time in New York between the wars.

[Fredrik · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Based on the diaries of the women and men that he loved and that loved him, it’s a kind of ‘tell-all’ tale of their bohemian life together, threesomes included.”
—from an Amazon.com customer review, so you know it’s true.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun, juicy read focused largely on Beatrice Wood -- a celebrated ceramicist in her later life. And Marcel.

[Theremin Poisoning · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only wish it were a little more focused on Marcel.

[Mike Benoit · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oooof, of all the books about Duchamp surely this is one of the last you should read, not the first! He’s basically absent from the middle hundred pages!!

[Dot Lean · Rating 1 out of 5]

Spellbound I wasn’t and couldn’t finish reading this book.

[Mars · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed RPF more than the average person and I’m a BIG Duchamp enjoyer. I’m also an academic who not only teaches art but studies art history so I’m always on the hunt for more great material to get insight into art history. This book isn’t bad for that, it contextualizes a lot of personal patterns and decisions made in the art during the big dogs of the early 1900’s. It’s fun! It’s interesting! It’s juicy!


But on the other hand it just disregards any reality of thought and intention that is present in the actual bodies of work. I don’t believe in the myth of the artist, but there really is care and intention there that is blatantly disregarded. I also had big gripes with the authors description of Entant Donnes. She completely discludes its reference to “Origin of the World” by Courbet and despite her obvious extensive research, she constantly downplays the artistic influences that art history has on the work and practice of these artists.

It’s great RPF for people who particularly enjoy the artists of the early 1900! I very much enjoyed it!