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Case file s1789 · Literature and art · 1968
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1968
Marcel Duchamp: French artist Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)
Marcel Duchamp. Unknown author. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
2 October 1968
Place
Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
Field
conceptual art
Legal tradition
US and French law · Common law · Civil law
Historical event
Posthumous reveal of a hidden work
Religion
Marcel Duchamp: Atheist and agnostic (recorded as French atheists on Wikipedia)
Member of
College of 'Pataphysics, Oulipo, American Academy of Arts and Letters, Société Normande de Peinture Moderne, Society of Independent Artists (Wikidata)
Literature and artSecret children and false heirsPostwarEuropeFrance

Marcel Duchamp worked in secret for 20 years on Étant donnés; it was moved to Philadelphia under his 1966 instructions after he died in 1968

For about twenty years Marcel Duchamp built Étant donnés in his New York studio while the art world assumed he had stopped making art. He wrote a manual in 1966 that sets out 15 operations for taking it apart and rebuilding it at the Philadelphia Museum of Art after his death. Its existence became public only after he died on 2 October 1968. His widow Alexina "Teeny" Duchamp, his stepson Paul Matisse and 25-year-old curatorial assistant Anne d'Harnoncourt oversaw the move. The work was dismantled in New York, packed, shipped and reinstalled in a gallery the museum had prepared. It opened to the public in 1969 as a gift from the Cassandra Foundation†. It stays in Philadelphia in 2026 and its manual was published as a facsimile in 1987.

What the law took from it

An artist who wants a work shown a certain way after death must write assembly and placement instructions and name the people who will carry them out.

Sources
  1. duchamparchives.orgGovernment record
  2. philamuseum.orgScholarship
  3. philamuseum.orgScholarship
  4. Wikipedia (English)Encyclopedia

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “Marcel Duchamp worked in secret for 20 years on Étant donnés; it was moved to Philadelphia under his 1966 instructions after he died in 1968,” story s1789, https://www.celebrity.estate/marcel-duchamp-1968, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

Literature and artSecret children and false heirsPostwarEuropeCommon lawCivil lawFrance