Marcel Duchamp

Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, ; ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, Futurism and conceptual art. He 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. He has had an immense impact on 20th- and 21st-century art, and a seminal influence on the development of conceptual art. By the time of World War I, he had rejected the work of many of his fellow artists (such as Henri Matisse) as "retinal," intended only to please the eye. Instead, he wanted to use art to serve the mind.

Duchamp is remembered as a pioneering figure partly because of the two famous scandals he provoked -- his ''Nude Descending a Staircase'' that was the most talked-about work of the landmark 1913 Armory Show -- and his ''Fountain'', a signed urinal displayed in the 1917 Society of Independent Artists exhibition that nearly single-handedly launched the New York Dada movement and led the entire New York art world to ponder the question of "What is art?" Provided by Wikipedia