Marcel's Masterpiece
How a Toilet Shaped the History of Art
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
A 2025 Texas Topaz Non-Fiction Pick
An engaging, kid-friendly introduction to artist Marcel Duchamp and how he turned a toilet into a famous work of art.
This is the story of Marcel Duchamp and how the Dada art movement changed the way people thought about what art could be, and what could be art. From drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa to attaching a bicycle wheel to a stool, Duchamp's work challenged long-held notions of art and how it should be made. People were amused, confused, and sometimes offended, and that was just the way Marcel Duchamp liked it.
With Marcel's Masterpiece, Jeff Mack explores Duchamp's most famous provocation, and asks readers to ponder the ideas that help us see the world in new and interesting ways.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This picture book biography of French artist Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) begins with his conceptualizing 1917's Fountain, an upside down urinal displayed in a "fancy art show" in New York. Shown in Mack's art as a wiry, straw-boater-sporting imp, Duchamp delights in the outrage and controversy that ensues, declaring, "Well, it did get people to think about art, didn't it?" The book's second half looks more broadly at Duchamp and his influence, including his Readymades; his alter ego, Rrose Sélavy; and the Dada movement with which he is associated, inviting readers to regard art in terms of "what ideas help us think about our world in new and interesting ways." Mixed-media cartooned vignettes, punctuated with collaged elements, including the laugh-out-loud text itself (about visiting Fountain, figures mention needing "to go"), strike just the right balance of headiness and breezy mischievousness for a young audience—innate connoisseurs of épater le bourgeoisie. Ages 4–8.
