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Marcel Duchamp

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:3,000.00 - 5,000.00 USD
Marcel Duchamp

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Auction Date:2018 Aug 08 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:236 Commercial St., Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
ALS in French, one page both sides, 5.75 x 7.75, November 14, 1962. Letter to his friend and fellow artist Marcel Marien, telling him to write to two key figures of the New York museums. In part (translated): "Regarding Mr. Messer he awaits your letter and you will likely be asked to come and see: Mr. Messer, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Fifth Avenue at 89th Street, New York NY. Regarding Mr. Seitz he will answer your letter if you write it: Mr. Seitz, Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd street, New York City." In fine condition. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope, addressed in Duchamp's hand. Marcel Marien (1920-1993) was a Belgian surrealist writer, essayist, poet, and editor, but also a photographer, filmmaker, and creator of collages and unusual objects. This letter presents a number of outstanding associations in the modern art scene: Thomas Messer was the longtime director of the Guggenheim Museum, serving for 27 years from 1961 to 1988 (thus far the longest tenure of any director of the city's major art institutions). Seitz was the curator of the Department of Painting and Sculpture Exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art from 1960 to 1970; he was both a studio artist and historian, bridging the divide between academic criticism and the practice of studio art. He was largely responsible for raising the study of contemporary art to an academic discipline. Marien only lived in New York for a single year, and in 1963 set out for Communist China to work as a translator on the French edition of the magazine China Under Construction. A truly exquisite and historically intriguing piece connecting the movers-and-shakers of the art world during this period.