Suzanne Duchamp

Suzanne Duchamp (1889 - 1963) was a French Dadaist painter.

Born in Blainville-Crevon, Normandy, France, she was the fourth of six children born into the artistic family of Eugene and Lucie Duchamp.

Suzanne Duchamp was the younger sister of:

• Jacques Villon (1875 - 1963), painter, printmaker
• Raymond Duchamp-Villon (1876 - 1918), sculptor
• Marcel Duchamp (1887 - 1968), painter, sculptor and author

She began her studies at the École des Beaux-Arts in her native Rouen when she was 16. Her early works reflected Impressionism and Cubism. At age 21, she married but quickly divorced, moving to the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris to be near her brother Marcel and to expand her own artistic career.

For female painters it was still difficult to be given full consideration. However, because of the growing prominence in their arts community of her older brothers, at age 22, she had her first major exhibit at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris. After the outbreak of World War I, she served as a nurse in Paris producing virtually nothing until 1916. It was then that the first of her Dadaist works appeared. Completed at the end of the War in 1919, Multiplication Broken and Restored is a prime example of the Dada work of Suzanne Duchamp. That same year, she married fellow artist Jean Crotti, whose painting she would greatly influence.

In 1967, in Rouen, France, her brother Marcel helped organize an exhibition called Les Duchamp: Jacques Villon, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Marcel Duchamp, Suzanne Duchamp. Some of this family exhibition was later shown at the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris.