Marcel DUCHAMP offers his ready-mades to André BRETON

Marcel Duchamp (1887.1968)

Set of two autograph letters signed to André Breton.

Four octavo pages in total. Stamped and canceled autograph envelopes.

New York. November 9, 1959 and November 20, 1959.

“So I am sending you, by air, instead, 2 small aprons (…). One is male and the other female. »

“ Couple de Tabliers ” ready-mades which were attached to the luxury version of the Boîte Alerte of the International Surrealism Exhibition , organized in 1959 by André Breton at the Galerie Daniel Cordier, in Paris.

New York. November 9, 1959:

“Dear André, first my new address [mentioned at the head of the letter] where we are in the middle of moving. Thank you for your long, very clear and very encouraging letter – the telegram: I hope to send you a text soon that you can have printed on the PTT forms – The object I spoke to you about is not a nut as I thought remember me but a double metal shell too heavy to think of sending 250, and above all too expensive; not to mention the time it would take to manufacture. So I am sending you, by air, instead, 2 small aprons (intended to protect hands from excessive heat from pots and pans on the stove). One is male and the other female and would also cost too much but could be made in 250 copies in Paris in a few days and at less cost. If you like the idea. Let me know again with a few words at least and see you soon on my “telegram”. Affectionately to both from Teeny and myself. Marcel. »

New York. November 20, 1959:

“Dear André, thank you for your long letter this morning – I immediately wired you the text of the telegram, a copy of which I enclose here. For the signature of the 20 aprons (40 signatures + 20 more for immediate collaborators) the simplest would be for me to sign on a small silk (satin) ribbon that would be sewn by machine or by hand. Unless you order it, I will take care of finding a small, not wide ribbon that can be cut after having been signed 60 times – and will send it to you by plane. Naturally, use as much as necessary the stamp whose imprint you sent me – see you soon for more news. Affectionately to both of us. Marcel. »

On the occasion of the International Exhibition of Surrealism – EROS – organized by André Breton at the Daniel Cordier gallery from December 15, 1959 to February 15, 1960, Marcel Duchamp created Couple of Aprons , also famous under the name Couple of Laundress' Aprons , pair of Ready-mades intended for the twenty copies of the luxury edition of the exhibition catalog, Boîte-Alerte.

The artist provocatively chooses to add masculine and feminine attributes in sewn fabric and fur to these oven gloves found in a New York bazaar. If he then seems to point with an ironic eye to the sulphurous reputation traditionally associated with laundresses, Duchamp here above all approaches eroticism in a singular way. As evidenced by its household function Couple of Aprons , according to him, the male and female forms are reconciled in an imaginary space which confuses them – his work – and it is this fusional principle which for Duchamp evokes eroticism.

Like Masculin/Féminin , an object presented by Mimi Parent for this same exhibition – a man's shirt and jacket associated with a tie made from his own hair – the present work then becomes a true manifesto of this last great surrealist exhibition perceived as the ultimate act of transgression against the moral, political and social order of the time.

Marcel Duchamp, letter sent to André Breton, November 20, 1959, New York (M. Duchamp cited in J. Gough-Cooper and J. Caumont, Ephemerides on and about Marcel Duchamp and Rrose Sélavy , 1887-1968 , London, 1993).