The Artist and His Critic Stripped Bare: The Correspondence of Marcel Duchamp and Robert Lebel Bilingual Edition

Edited and translated by Paul B. FranklinWith a foreword by Jean-Jacques Lebel Robert Lebel, French writer and art critic, was instrumental in rendering Marcel Duchamp’s often hermetic life, art, and ideas accessible to a wider public across Europe and the United States, principally with his 1959 publication Sur Marcel Duchamp, the first monograph and catalogue raisonné devoted to the artist. Duchamp was a willing partner in the book’s creation. In fact, his active participation in both its conception and layout was so substantial that the book is considered part of the artist’s oeuvre. But the project took six years to complete. The trials, tribulations, quarrels, and machinations that plagued the production, publication, and publicity of Sur Marcel Duchamp are the focus of this correspondence between two lifelong friends. Translated and printed in full together for the first time, and including the original French texts, these letters, postcards, and telegrams from the collection of