Suzanne Duchamp

Who was Suzanne Duchamp?

Suzanne Duchamp-Crotti was a French Dadaist painter. Born in Blainville-Crevon, Seine-Maritime in the Haute-Normandie Region of France, she was the fourth of six children born into the artistic family of Eugene and Lucie Duchamp.

Suzanne Duchamp-Crotti was the younger sister of:

Jacques Villon née Gaston Duchamp, painter, printmaker

Raymond Duchamp-Villon, sculptor

Marcel Duchamp, painter, sculptor and author

She began her studies at the École des Beaux-Arts in her native Rouen when she was 16. Her early works reflected Impressionism and cubism. At age 21, she married a local pharmacist but quickly divorced, moving to the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris to be near her brother Marcel and to expand her artistic career.

For female painters at the time it was difficult to get full consideration. However, because of her older brothers' growing prominence in the arts community, at age 22, she had her first major exhibit at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris.

After the outbreak of World War I, she served as a nurse in Paris producing virtually nothing until 1916 when Jean Crotti returned to Paris, bearing news of Marcel and of the exciting art being made in New York. After the war, the first of her Dadaist works appeared.