Fresh Widow

Marcel Duchamp · New York 1920

This is Fresh Widow, made in New York in nineteen twenty — a miniature French window whose panes are covered in black leather, so there is nothing to see through it. The title is a pun on French window, and Duchamp had the leather polished like shoes.

Medium Miniature French window with panes of glass covered with black leather, painted wood frame, and plastic push pins · Dimensions 30 1/2 x 17 5/8" (77.5 x 44.8 cm), on wood sill 3/4 x 21 x 4" (1.9 x 53.4 x 10.2 cm) · Credit Katherine S. Dreier Bequest

Hanging beside it in The Steven and Alexandra Cohen Center for Special Exhibitions: 3 Standard Stoppages, Rotary Demisphere (Precision Optics)

Works like this one elsewhere in the museum: Houston Street

More by Marcel Duchamp here: Why Not Sneeze Rose Sélavy?, In Advance of the Broken Arm, Network of Stoppages, Landscape, The Chess Players, The Passage from Virgin to Bride