An Inscribed Copy
NOT SEEN and / or LESS SEEN of / by MARCEL DUCHAMP / RROSE SELAVY 1904 – 64
Richard Hamilton [foreword and catalog texts]
Richard Hamilton [foreword and catalog texts]: NOT SEEN and / or LESS SEEN of / by MARCEL DUCHAMP / RROSE SELAVY 1904 – 64. New York: Cordier & Ekstrom, December 1964. First edition [3,000 copies]. Slim quarto. Original wrappers designed by Duchamp feature Duchamp's "Open Door" printed in color, embossed on die-cut wrappers with deboss to rear panel. Unpaginated. 3 tipped-in color plates. Errata slip laid in. Exhibition catalog with 90 works described and illustrated in black and white; an additional 35 works described some of which are illustrated in black-and-white. INSCRIBED to photographer Terry Schutte by Duchamp on title page [see scan]. The extended portions of the die cut, yapped wrappers uniformly worn [as usual], spine slightly darkened and faint yellowing, but a very good copy of this first state catalog with the the original title page.
Terry Schutte contributed many photographs to Dore Ashton’s “Joseph Cornell Album” and Al Hansen’s “A Primer of Happenings & Time/Space Art,” as well as documenting Carolee Schneemann, Salvador Dali and various SoHo luminaries. When shown images of this copy of “Not Seen,” a noted Duchamp collector wrote “As per the signature, it looks nothing like Duchamp’s handwriting, however that’s probably because it was signed during the excitement of the New York opening—which Warhol filmed. A friend, and Dealer (who exhibited Joseph Beuys and other conceptually oriented artists in 1960s-80s), showed me his regular copy years ago, inscribed at the opening Duchamp had written [the Dealer’s name] with an arrow pointing from Rrose Selavy just like yours. So, having seen a similarly dedication your copy probably was inscribed by Duchamp.”
8.5 x 11.25 catalog from the 1965 Cordier & Ekstrom exhibition January 14 - February 13, featuring works by Duchamp from the Mary Sisler Collection. Foreword and catalog texts by Richard Hamilton. When Mary Sisler saw this version of the catalog she was incensed that her name was not only much smaller than Duchamp's, but at the bottom of the title-page, and demanded that the catalogue be withdrawn, and be reissued. As a result surviving copies of the first version are extremely rare. "The Mary Sisler Collection was the most important private collection of works by Duchamp; and the exhibition, a historical event. It was the first and the most inclusive Duchamp retrospective to be held by a private gallery in the United States" (Arturo Schwarz “The Complete Works Of Marcel Duchamp”)
Martin Friedman, the Director of the Walker Art Center (1961 – 1990) provided some background on the origins of this catalog in “It’s Art If I Say So”: Martin Friedman on Marcel Duchamp’s 1965 Visit to Minneapolis:”
“The dinner was the beginning of a big weekend at the Walker. Duchamp and Teeny, formerly the wife of the art dealer Pierre Matisse–the son of Henri–had come to the prairie to inaugurate an exhibition enigmatically titled NOT SEEN and/or LESS SEEN of/by MARCEL DUCHAMP/RROSE SELAVY. Only Duchamp could have come up with that appellation, a play on the name of his feminine alter-ego, Rose C’est La Vie. He occasionally assumed her persona in photographs in which he was in full drag. The exhibition at the Walker was comprised of paintings, drawings, documents, and a group of objects that, singly and in combination with others, Duchamp termed “readymades.” Though the readymades were for the most part ordinary daily objects, they were also, in his view, works of art simply because he declared them as such. These and other inclusions in the exhibition belonged to the New York collection of Mr. and Mrs. William Sisler. I learned, from Arne Ekstrom of the Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery in New York, that an exhibition of Duchamp’s work owned by Mary Sisler was being organized under the gallery’s auspices. Among institutions already signed up for its American tour were the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Milwaukee Art Center (now the Milwaukee Art Museum). The exhibition catalogue foreword and notes on specific works were by the English Pop artist Richard Hamilton, a discerning, articulate voice in the realm of Duchampiana. When I expressed interest in presenting the exhibition at the Walker, Ekstrom suggested that I speak with Mrs. Sisler directly, and that he would be glad to arrange a meeting. A few days later I called on Mrs. Sisler at her spacious, art-filled Fifth Avenue apartment overlooking the Metropolitan Museum, across the street. Would I care for some champagne, she asked graciously, gesturing toward a large silver vessel containing several uncorked bottles on ice. I demurred politely, wanting to be as clear-headed as possible in making my case for the show. I knew little about Mary Sisler, other than that she and her late husband had a collection of contemporary American art that ranged from Abstract Expressionism to Pop. I was aware that Duchamp had authorized the re-creation of some of his early readymades, the originals of which had long since been lost or destroyed. I knew that these new iterations had been fabricated under the supervision of Arturo Schwarz, Duchamp’s Milan-based dealer. One set of these had been purchased by Sisler from the Cordier and Eckstrom Gallery.”
Mary Sisler (Maryland, 1904 – 1990) built an exceptional collection of Modern and Contemporary Art using the fortune of her deceased husband and Firestone heir William Tilton Sisler. Sisler’s son David —an ardent collector of Duchamp’s work and was named lecturer and research fellow at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in January 1962 and who had assisted Hopps with the 1963 Duchamp retrospective at the Pasadena Art Museum—originally encouraged her to acquire Duchamp’s work. [The Artist and His Critic Stripped Bare: The Correspondence of Marcel Duchamp and Robert Lebel, footnote 273]
Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (France/America, 1887 – 1968) was a painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer who is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, as one of the three artists who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture. Duchamp has had an immense impact on twentieth-century and twenty first-century art; and he had a seminal influence on the development of conceptual art. By World War I, he had rejected the work of many of his fellow artists (such as Henri Matisse) as "retinal" art, intended only to please the eye. Instead, Duchamp wanted to use art to serve the mind.[Wikipedia] [xlist_2018]