2016.16.2
Through the Big End of the Opera Glass
Artist
Marcel Duchamp
(1887 - 1968)
Title
Through the Big End of the Opera Glass
Creation Date
1943
Century
mid-20th century
Dimensions
9 x 11 1/2 in. (23 x 29 cm)
Object Type
print
Creation Place
North America, United States
Medium and Support
printed red and black ink on thin buff paper
Credit Line
Museum Purchase, Lloyd O. and Marjorie Strong Coulter Fund
Copyright
This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s
Copyright Terms and Conditions.
Accession Number
2016.16.2
One of the first gallerists to create thematic exhibitions complete with announcements, Julien Levy commissioned these notices from Marcel Duchamp in honor of Through the Big End of the Opera Glass (1943) and The Imagery of Chess (1944-45), shortly after the artist relocated to the United States from France during World War II. Each notice celebrates multiple artists, including, in the case of Through the Big End of the Opera Glass, examples of their work. Duchamp’s contribution is perhaps the most playful, consisting of an interplay between front and back: a miniature Cupid, based on a hand-rendered design by Duchamp, playfully points at a chess problem, printed on the opposite side of the translucent paper. Having crafted a conundrum apparently designed to be insoluble, Duchamp may playfully be alluding, as scholar Francis Naumann has noted, to his famous quip: “There is no solution because there is no problem."