Marcel déchiravit—"Marcel tore this quickly"—reads the inscription of this work made for deluxe copies of Robert Lebel’s Sur Marcel Duchamp (see nearby case). Placing a specially fabricated zinc template of his silhouette against squares of origami paper, Duchamp tore 137 self-portraits by hand, one for each copy. The torn sheets were then mounted on velvet-covered paperboard and attached as frontispieces. Although the Metropolitan’s self-portrait is numbered differently than other examples from the deluxe edition, traces of reddish brown linen on the underside matches that edition’s red linen case, indicating that it was likely detached from such a box. Self-Portrait in Profile became one of Duchamp’s best known late works, appearing in exhibition posters and inspiring homages by Jasper Johns and Ray Johnson.

Inscription: Inscribed (on white paper, lower right, in pen and ink): marcel dechiravit

William S. Lieberman, New York

¦Marcel Duchamp: A Retrospective Exhibition¦, Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, California, October 8-November 3, 1963, cat. no. 106 [ed. no. ?? / lent by Mr. and Mrs. William Copley, New York].

¦Marcel Duchamp: Ready-Mades, Etc. (1913-1964)¦, Galleria Schwarz, Milan, June 5-September 30, 1964; traveled to Bern, London, The Hague, Eindhoven, and Hannover, 1964-65, cat. no. 31 [ed. no. 58 exhibited].

¦Not Seen and/or Less Seen of/by Marcel Duchamp/Rrose Sélavy, 1904-64¦, Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery, New York, January 14-February 13, 1965; traveled to Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, February 23-March 28, 1965, cat. no. M27 [ed. no. 52 exhibited, along with Lebel's Sur Marcel Duchamp, deluxe edition].

¦Marcel Duchamp: 66 Creative Years¦, Galleria Schwarz and Centro l'Uomo e l'Arte, Milan, December 12, 1972-February 28, 1973; cat. no. 156 [illus. reversed with cat. no. 159? ed. no. 95 illus.?].

¦Marcel Duchamp¦, Philadelphia Museum of Art, September 22-November 11, 1973; traveled to the Museum of Modern Art, New York, December 3, 1973-February 10, 1974; and to The Art Institute of Chicago, March 9-April 21, 1974; cat. no. 269 [ed. no. ??].

¦L'Oeuvre de Marcel Duchamp¦, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, Paris, January 31-May 2, 1977; cat. no. 160 [as "Autoportrait de profil," personalized ed. exhibited with signature "Marcel Dechiravit pour Robert Lebel;" lent by Robert Lebel, Paris].

Inventing Marcel Duchamp: The Dynamics of Portraiture, National Portrait Gallery, March 27 - August 2, 2009; cat. no. 58, pg. 223.

Robert Lebel. Sur Marcel Duchamp. Paris: Trianon Press, 1959, p. iii, p. 176 (cat. no. 202).

____. Marcel Duchamp. trans. George Heard Hamilton. New York: Grove Press, 1959, p. iii, p. 176 (cat. no. 202).

Walter Hopps. Marcel Duchamp: A Retrospective Exhibition. Pasadena, CA: Pasadena Art Museum, 1963, unpag. (cat. no. 106).

Walter Hopps, Ulf Linde, and Arturo Schwarz. Marcel Duchamp: Ready-Mades, Etc. (1913-1964). Milan and Paris: Galleria Schwarz and Le Terrain Vague, 1964, p. 82 (cat. no. 31 [ed. no. 58 listed]).

Not Seen and/or Less Seen of/by Marcel Duchamp/Rrose Sélavy, 1904-64. New York and Houston: Cordier & Ekstrom, Inc., and the Contemporary Arts Museum, 1964, unpag. (cat. no. M[iscellaneous]27 [ed. no. 52 listed]).

Arturo Schwarz. Marcel Duchamp: 66 Creative Years. Milan: Galleria Schwarz, 1972, illus. p. 69 (cat. no. 156 [no ed. no. listed]).

Anne d'Harnoncourt and Kynaston McShine. Marcel Duchamp. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1973, p. 38 (cat. no. 269 [no ed. no. listed]).

____. Marcel Duchamp. New York and Philadelphia: The Museum of Modern Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1973, pp. 310-11 (cat. no. 174 [single version dedicated to Julian Levy]).

Patricia Kaplan. "On Jasper Johns' According to What." Art Journal, vol. 35, no. 3. (Spring, 1976): pp. 247-250 [as, per Johns, "Myself Torn To Pieces"].

Jean Clair. "Catalogue Raisonné." L'Oeuvre de Marcel Duchamp. Paris: Le Centre, 1977, illus. vol. II, p. 131 (cat. no. 160 [as "Autoportrait de profil," with signature "Marcel Dechiravit pour Robert Lebel"]).

Robert Lebel. Sur Marcel Duchamp. Paris: Editions du Centre Pompidou and Mazzotta, 1996, p. 176 (cat. no. 202 [as "Auto-Portrait de Profil"]), illus. p. iii.

Arturo Schwartz. The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp. New York: Delano Greenridge Editions, 1997 [third rev. edition], vol. II, illus. pp. 811-12 (cat. no. 557).

Francis M. Naumann. Marcel Duchamp: The Art of Making Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Ghent and New York: Ludion Press and Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1999, pp. 188-92, 195-98, 219, 277 (cat. no. 7.19); illus. p. 189, fig. 7.19.