‘Marcel Duchamp’ became the go-to book on the artist for many decades following its publication in late 1959, when exclusive grand-deluxe and deluxe editions in French, along with trade editions in French and English, were simultaneously released. While Trianon Press’s French trade edition was reprinted numerous times, the Grove Press English edition languished out of print for the better part of two generations―until now, with Hauser & Wirth Publishers’ fully authorized facsimile re-edition. It’s Duchamp’s seminal book―his first monograph―and the culmination of many years of his collaboration with its author, art historian and critic Robert Lebel. The two became friends in the time Lebel spent questioning and studying Duchamp―a relationship that resulted in a comprehensive, erudite analysis of Duchamp’s oeuvre and the first draft of the artist’s catalogue raisonné. To this day, the book’s texts, which include chapters authored by Duchamp, H.P. Roché, and André Breton, remain fresh, as does the book’s design, which was personally supervised by the artist. Hauser & Wirth Publishers reanimates ‘Marcel Duchamp’ with its faithful reproduction of the 1959 Grove Press edition with the design firm fluid, who recreated the original typefaces as digital fonts, positioning each letter and image exactly as they were in the original.

The facsimile of the historic English edition is presented in slipcase with a supplement edited by Jean-Jacques Lebel and Association Marcel Duchamp. The supplement features texts and archival material, including a newly discovered note by Man Ray, that stitch together the story of Duchamp and Lebel’s close collaboration, and, as contributor Michael Taylor writes, how the original publication signified a ‘sea change in the artist’s receptivity to critical interpretation.’