Artist: Marcel Duchamp (French, 1887 - 1968).
Title: "The Kiss".
Medium: Original color zincograph.
Date: Composed 1945. Printed 1945.
Dimensions: Overall size: 11 1/2 x 9 1/16 in. (292 x 230 mm).
Lot Note(s): Signed in pencil with the initials, lower left. Edition unknown, presumed small. High-grade archival cream wove paper. The full sheet. Fine, quality printing with very heavy ink application. Very good to fine condition; would be fine save for unobtrusive offsetting in the title and the back cover, the result of of the object being stacked (one on top of another) for several decades. Literature/catalogue raisonne: Schwarz, Arturo “The Complete Works of Marcel Champ,” New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1970, Second Revised edition, No. 518. Collection(s): The original zinc plate for this print is part of the Duchamp Archives at the Philadelphia Musuem of Art (included in our online catalogue as images two and three). Provenance: through the artists Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning. Comment(s): This exhibition broadside is scarce and very rare signed. Unsigned impressions have sold within the past several years at Ursus Rare Books, New York City ($3,500) and Manhattan Rare Book Company, New York City ($3,000). A recent auction sale of an unsigned impression realized $1,875 at Swann Auction Galleries, New York City, May 23, 2019, lot #199. Duchamp designed this work for a Man Ray exhibition, ‘Objects of My Affection,’ at the Julien Levy Gallery, New York City, in April of 1945. His composition was based on an image by the Czech cinematographer Alexander Hackenschmied, this ‘film still’ now commonly referred to as "The Kiss." The inside pages feature an artist's statement by Man Ray and an exhibition checklist. The verso features a list of Man Ray's "Objects of My Affection.” Image copyright © The Estate of Marcel Duchamp. [30516-2-2400]

Very good to fine condition; would be fine save for unobtrusive offsetting in the title and the back cover, the result of of the object being stacked (one on top of another) for several decades