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The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Green Box), September 1934
Marcel Duchamp (French, 1887–1968)
Box containing collotype reproductions on various papers; Overall: 13 x 11 1/8 x 1 in. (33 x 28.3 x 2.5 cm)
Anonymous Gift, 2002 (2002.42a–vvvv)

The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Green Box) (1934) is a limited edition of notes on scraps of paper that details Duchamp's own explication of his masterpiece The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) (1915–23). A compilation of the artist's creative thought process during the conception (while in Paris and New York) and execution (while in New York) of The Large Glass, it is an essential counterpart to the material work it describes verbally. Containing one color plate, ninety-three notes, and photographs and facsimiles by Duchamp, the green-flocked cardboard box—produced in an edition of 320—provides valuable insight into how Duchamp developed and arrived at his legendary mechanomorphic style. Though each Green Box is organized in no particular order, there is an obsessive and disciplined quality to this project, due to Duchamp's insistence that he himself reproduce each edition by hand. Duchamp viewed the contents of The Green Box as more than a mere guide to understanding The Large Glass. Put differently, The Green Box was not a key to unlocking the secrets of The Large Glass but, rather, a verbal version of the graphic masterpiece. For Duchamp, The Large Glass represented a compilation of his ideas rendered visually; The Green Box was thus the verbal complement.


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    The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Green Box), September 1934
    Marcel Duchamp (French, 1887–1968)
    Box containing collotype reproductions on various papers; Overall: 13 x 11 1/8 x 1 in. (33 x 28.3 x 2.5 cm)
    Anonymous Gift, 2002 (2002.42a–vvvv)