Alexina Duchamp
{{short description|Wife of Pierre Matisse (1906–1995)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2025}}
File:Alexina Duchamp 01.jpg at a party in the south of France in the 1970s]]
Alexina "Teeny" Duchamp ({{née}} Sattler; January 6, 1906 – December 20, 1995) was the wife of Pierre Matisse, the daughter-in-law of artist Henri Matisse, and the second wife of artist and chess player Marcel Duchamp.
Early life
Alexina Sattler was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1906. The youngest daughter of prominent surgeon Robert Sattler, she was nicknamed "Teeny" by her mother Agnes Mitchell because of her low birth weight.
Paris and marriage to Pierre Matisse
File:Alexina Duchamp, Jacqueline Matisse - GianAngelo Pistoia 1.jpg in 1993]]
File:Alexina Duchamp - GianAngelo Pistoia 2.jpg
Sattler at first thought of becoming an artist and went to Paris in 1921, where for a time she studied sculpture with Constantin Brâncuși at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris.John Russell (December 22, 1995), [https://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/22/nyregion/alexina-duchamp-dada-artist-s-wife-and-colleague-89.html Alexina Duchamp, Dada Artist's Wife And Colleague, 89] The New York Times. She first met Marcel Duchamp in 1923 at a ball given in her honor by American sculptor Mariette Benedict Mills, the mother of a close friend. In 1929 Teeny married Pierre Matisse, an art dealer and the youngest son of Fauve artist Henri Matisse. They had three children: Jacqueline, Paul, and Peter. Throughout 1938, Henri Matisse made a series of portrait sketches of Alexina.[http://museum.cornell.edu/collections/view/portrait-of-alexina-matisse.html Henri Matisse, Portrait of Alexina Matisse (1938)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120615073829/http://museum.cornell.edu/collections/view/portrait-of-alexina-matisse.html |date=June 15, 2012 }} Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University. When her husband was mobilized in Paris at the outbreak of World War II, she ran his gallery for some months. In 1949 Pierre and Teeny separated due to Pierre's infidelity with Patricia Kane Matta, the former wife of surrealist painter Roberto Matta.{{cite web |url=http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-sally-avery-12685 |title=Oral history interview with Sally Avery, 1982 February 19 | Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution |website=www.aaa.si.edu |access-date=January 3, 2012}} She received many important paintings in the subsequent divorce settlement.
She worked for a time as an agent and broker for artists such as Brâncuși and Joan Miró.
New York and marriage to Marcel Duchamp
In the autumn of 1951 she was invited by Dorothea Tanning to go on a weekend trip in Hunterdon County.Barry Schwabsky (March 21, 1999), [https://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/21/nyregion/art-review-the-age-of-experiments-postcards-from-a-time-of-you-had-to-be-there.html The Age of Experiments: Postcards From a Time of 'You Had to Be There'] The New York Times. It was on that trip that she once again met Duchamp, and romance developed shortly thereafter. They were both avid chess players. Teeny and Duchamp married in New York City on January 16, 1954. They lived in New York and in Paris; around 1958, the couple began spending summers in Cadaqués, Spain, on the Costa Brava. They were together until his death in 1968. Following Duchamp's death, Alexina moved to Villiers-sous-Grez, near Paris, where she assembled an archive of photographs and other material documenting the life and work of her late husband. She maintained a close friendship with many of Duchamp's friends, including Jasper Johns, Richard Hamilton, composer John Cage, Gianfranco Baruchello, and choreographer Merce Cunningham.[http://www.philamuseum.org/pma_archives/ead.php?c=MDP&p=hn Alexina and Marcel Duchamp Papers] Philadelphia Museum of Art. Alexander Calder presented her with individually designed jewelry. She also served as an honorary trustee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which has the largest collection of Duchamp's work.
After the death of her husband Marcel Duchamp in 1968, Alexina "Teeny" Duchamp collaborated with their son Paul Matisse and curator Anne d'Harnoncourt to oversee the posthumous installation of Duchamp's artwork "Étant donnés" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.{{Cite web |title=Marcel Duchamp: Étant donnés |url=https://philamuseum.org/calendar/exhibition/marcel-duchamp-etant-donnes |access-date=July 15, 2024 |website=philamuseum.org |language=en}}
References
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Reading
- Tomkins, Calvin, Duchamp: A Biography. Henry Holt and Company, Inc., 1996. {{ISBN|0-8050-5789-7}}
- Baruchello, Gianfranco & Martin, Henry, Why Duchamp: An Essay on Aesthetic Impact, McPherson, 1985, {{ISBN|9780914232735}}
External links
- {{cite web |url= https://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/22/nyregion/alexina-duchamp-dada-artist-s-wife-and-colleague-89.html |title= Alexina Duchamp, Dada Artist's Wife And Colleague, 89 |work= Obituary |first= John |last= Russell |date= December 22, 1995 |publisher= New York Times }}
- {{cite web |url= http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-sally-avery-12685 |title= Oral history interview with Sally Avery |work= Mark Rothko and his Times oral history project |first= Tom |last= Wolf |date= February 19, 1982 |publisher= Archives of American Art |access-date= January 3, 2012 }}
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Category:American women art dealers