Nude Descending

Up - bottom - Mondrian - Mona Lisa - Nude Descending a Staircase - American Gothic - Guernica - Last Supper - Mondrian Portrait - Scream

This, following my Mondrian pages, is another exploration of the impact of an early piece of modern art on its own and on subsequent generations.

Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2), 1913 is in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The PMA's own web site states,

This painting created a sensation when it was exhibited in New York in February 1913 at the historic Armory Show of contemporary art, where perplexed Americans saw it as representing all the tricks they felt European artists were playing at their expense. The picture's outrageousness surely lay in its seemingly mechanical portrayal of a subject at once so sensual and time-honored. The Nude's destiny as a symbol also stemmed from its remarkable aggregation of avant-garde concerns: the birth of cinema; the Cubists' fracturing of form; the Futurists' depiction of movement; the chromophotography of Etienne-Jules Marey, Eadweard Muybridge, and Thomas Eakins; and the redefinitions of time and space by scientists and philosophers. The painting was bought directly from the Armory Show for three hundred dollars by a San Francisco dealer. Marcel Duchamp's great collector-friend Walter Arensberg was able to buy the work in 1927, eleven years after Duchamp had obligingly made him a hand-colored, actual-size photographic copy. Today both the copy and the original, together with a preparatory study, are owned by the Museum.


Nude descending a staircase Muybridge Muybridge animation Marcel Duchamp
The influences seem to be Cubism and Muybridge's serial photographs (interesting sample here). Nude Descending Stairs, 1887

Two common questions are, 'where is the nude?' and 'where is the staircase?'. Fortunately, these are not important.

It is worth bearing in mind that Duchamp was a key player in the Surrealist, Futurist and American Dada movements. Two of his other most famous works are,

Fountain, Duchamp
Fountain, 1917 Duchamp referred to such pieces as readymades, but the practice became more widely known as found art, This was the first of several urinals he turned into art during his lifetime, this one being signed R Mutt. It was rejected as not being art for the 1917 Society of Independent Artists exhibition, from the board of which Duchamp then resigned.
L.H.O.O.Q.,Duchamp
This work, from 1919, was entitled L.H.O.O.Q., thought to be a play on 'words' as, when said in French sounds rather like 'she has a hot ass'.
It has been suggested that rather than just using a poster of the original Mona Lisa, he repainted it to look more like himself.
L.H.O.O.Q. detail
a detail of the face

Duchamp produced several paintings in a cubist style, some similar to Nude Descending

Sonata Dulcinea Chess Players Transition of Virgin into a Bride Nude descending a staircase Sad Young Man in a Train
Sonata, 1911
Dulcinea, 1911
Portrait of Chess Players, 1911
Transition of Virgin into a Bride, 1912
Bride
Sad Young Man in a Train

Two more important points before we continue:

What follows is a trawl of modern artistic output to discover homages to Duchamp's Nude Descending.

A new line starting in November 2011, Laurentiu Todié has emailed a new version. Good submissions will be gathered at the top. Pieter Myers submitted his Nude Descending in March 2012, but I didn't get around to adding it until July.

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[26Aug12] From the book Arty Cats by David Baird and Vicky Cox, perhaps the closest to Duchamp's original and thus one of the cleverest and most artistic offerings. Further details here.
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text from here
Todie
Nude Descending from Laurentiu Todié. Here's a link to Pixels Painting.
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Nude Descending, by Pieter Myers, link .

self portrait
Let's start at home with
Modest Self Portrait of the Artist as a Nude Man Descending a Staircase, 2005
also including the Mondrian Collection
Muybridge and Escher
Here's another of mine, Muybridge nude descending Escher staircase, 2005
Mark Caywood
Now two from my favourite active artist, Mark Caywood
Staircase Descending a Nude #1.
My previous link to Mark's site is now dead so here's a temporary link to a lookup site. Mark's work now lives here.
Mark Caywood
Staircase Descending a Nude #2.
Mark also does a fine line in Mondrians, see here .
Hananiah Harari
Hananiah Harari, Nude Descending a Staircase from here.
Artist's comments from the source web site, I felt impelled towards a renewed disposition of this subject made notorious with the uproar over Marcel Duchamp's entry in the 1913 Armory Show. The theme has since become generic, as have themes such as bathers, piping Pans, or reclining nudes.. But my own statement would not or could not, be cast in Duchamp's cubist-futurist idiom. Serendipity led me to the Pre-Raphaelite Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones whose painting The Golden Stairs suggested a scaffold for my own. His Victorian maidens, a saccharine demiseraphic troupe, were for me quite naturally no more embraceable than Duchamp's metallic robots. However the sweep of Burne-Jones' design provided my nude her stage. She makes entrance, then descends to diverse portraits comprising not only head, but body & temper - revealed step by step as it were, in shifting colors, light, and action. After "performing" in choreographed (sometimes mocking) descent , she exits below to Art and to the World. (My debt to Burne-Jones is acknowledged in the lower right hand corner of my work, where his name can be seen on a crumpled candy-wrapper.
Angela Hrabowiak
Angela Hrabowiak, Nude descending staircase with her cock in her hand, 1992 from [dead link].
Rufus Butler Seder
Rufus Butler Seder, Nude descending a staircase (detail) from here.
n/a
Jonathan Lane. I once found a work called Nude; Descending Staircase Stairway at Tobacco Road - Miami, here. I wrote to the artist seeking permission to show it but did not receive a reply. I looked again in September 2009 and the site now has some nice snaps followed by a lot of wedding photos. Jonathan has missed his chance.
William Richard Hundley
William Richard Hundley, Nude Descending Again, 2001 from here
Dan Feldman
Dan Feldman, Fork Descending A Staircase, 1997 from here
Michael Townsend
Michael Townsend dead link
Vince Budnick
Vince Budnick, Nude descending an escalator, 1998 from here
John Wrobleski
John Wrobleski, Nude Descending a Staircase, 2004 dead link
a rather literal reading
James M. Glenn
James M. Glenn, Nude descending stairs from here
Peter Saul
Peter Saul, Nude Descending a Staircase, 1977 from here
Phil Bacon, Nude Descending a Staircase
Phil Bacon, Nude Descending a Staircase dead link
G. Frederick Morante
G. Frederick Morante, Nude Descending the Stare Case, 1993 from here
Elisabeth Flynn-Chapman
Elisabeth Flynn-Chapman, Nude Descending the Staircase, 2004 from here
Rolf-Maria Kr?kels
Rolf-Maria Kr?kels, Nude Descending a Staircase, 1996 from here
This is a single image from multiple-image works.
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Peter Max, Nude Descending. 1974 from here
Chuck Jones
Chuck Jones, Nude Duck Descending a Staircase, 1991 from here
Reinier Kelder
Reinier Kelder, Descending Nude dead link
Derek Sayer,  nude descending a staircase
Derek Sayer, nude descending a staircase from here
Tony Ward, Ascending Staircase
Tony Ward, Ascending Staircase dead link
Glenn Ibbitson, male ascending staircase
Glenn Ibbitson, male ascending staircase from here
Nick Blackburn, Carrot descending a sea of steps
Another of mine, a rather fetchingly shaped carrot from the allotment gives us

Carrot descending a sea of steps.

Thanks to Robert W. Kolb for the background image from here
Steve Ritchie, Nude Descending Stairs
Steve Ritchie, Nude Descending Stairs from here
another Steve Ritchie, Nude Reclining on Stairs
another Steve Ritchie, Nude Reclining on Stairs from here
Ed Freeman, Nude on Staircase
Ed Freeman, Nude on Staircase dead link
Chad Robertson, Nude Falling Down a Staircase
Chad Robertson, Nude Falling Down a Staircase dead link
from the web page,
Disturbing, provocative, sometimes humorous, and often characterized by a seductive melancholy, Chad's paintings have a disarmingly lifelike quality and a colloquial style that make them appear at first glance to be poorly shot photographs-over-exposed and taken by a shaky hand. The result is a jarring study in the quiet isolation of his subjects.
Peter Edwards, Nude Decending [?] Staircase
Peter Edwards, Sarah nude Descending Stairs from here
[14th May 2010] I have received an email from Tim Bingham who owns this picture and whose wife is the model. He states 'I have it in the study as I type, nearly life size'. Tim has corrected the title. Although Peter Edwards is featured in the linked site, this painting seems to have been removed.
Dali, Nude Woman Climbing a Staircase
Dali, Nude Woman Climbing a Staircase dead link
Alice ascending a staircase at a St. Louis Rave
Flea (artist or editor?), Alice ascending a staircase at a St. Louis Rave dead link
nudeStaircaseMultiple
MicHael Galkovsky (?), nudeStaircaseMultiple dead link

This is probably the best so far. I would have straightened up the fishtank, but perhaps it was a conscious decision not to do so.
Patrick Lincoln, Nude coming down the staircase looking for Marcel Duchamp
Patrick Lincoln, Nude coming down the staircase looking for Marcel Duchamp dead link but revitalised through an email from Patrick on 12th January 2020,
So there I was looking for web mentions&/or links to my web-page Lincoln Gallery and I find a reference to one of my early works. I am pleased to find it in your presentation and this constitutes formal permission for you to use it , if you need such. I would like to have my gallery in Jerome, Az. and my web-page mentioned if you could be so kind. The piece is digitally manipulated photography by the way and the model was posed on steps in a structure that, years later, would contain my gallery. The real title is "Nude descending stairs while looking everywhere for Marcel Duchamp"
Gerhard Richter, Ema (Nude on a Staircase) 1966
Gerhard Richter, Ema (Nude on a Staircase) 1966 from here
artist unknown
artist unknown, nude descending a staircase (animated) from here
Lorrie McClanahan, nude cat descending a staircase
Lorrie McClanahan, nude cat descending a staircase from here
John Carmichael, Nude on Staircase
John Carmichael, Nude on Staircase from here
  	Ira Carter, Elvis Descending a Staircase
Ira Carter, Elvis Descending a Staircase from here
I'll date the additions from here on: 14th Oct 05
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Ralph Lichtensteiger, Bea Descending a Staircase No. 2, 1999 from here
14th Oct 05
D M Scott, Julie Descending a Staircase, 2003
D M Scott, Julie Descending a Staircase, 2003 dead link
14th Oct 05
Michael Bergt, Nude Descending a Stairway (2002)
Michael Bergt, Nude Descending a Stairway (2002), 27 x 20in, colored pencil, gouache on paper dead link
14th Oct 05
Jim McNitt, Nude Descending a Guitar Case, 2003
Jim McNitt, Nude Descending a Guitar Case, 2003 from here
14th Oct 05
Gordon Lochhead, Descending, 1998
Gordon Lochhead, Descending, 1998 from here
14th Oct 05

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This will be the last on the page, and the last on the last page if I get enough for a split.
Mel Ramos, Nude Descending A Staircase from here
Has qualities of draughtsmanship, but no artistic merit whatsoever.

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text from here
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text from here

These pages were originally created in October 2005 and rewritten between September and November 2009. Judging from the number of links which have died over those 4 years, it looks as though I am performing a minor service here. During the rewrite I have found a number of new homages and will add these in due course.

Up - top - Mondrian - Mona Lisa - Nude Descending a Staircase - American Gothic - Guernica - Last Supper - Mondrian Portrait - Scream

Click here to send comments or contributions.


page rewrite started 2nd September 2009 - old