The Kunsthaus Zürich is currently presenting the world’s first retrospective dedicated to Suzanne Duchamp. The Dadaist and painter Suzanne Duchamp, sister of Marcel Duchamp, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, and Jacques Villon, was at the forefront of her time and shaped art history. For the first time globally, Suzanne Duchamp’s work is showcased in a comprehensive retrospective, highlighting all its facets—from her early abstract compositions and Dadaist experiments to the figurative works of her later years.
Suzanne Duchamp (1889, Blainville-Crevon – 1963, Neuilly-sur-Seine) navigated the boundary between painting and wordplay in her art. Her works oscillate between abstraction and figuration, often accompanied by enigmatic titles that evoke new associations. Her friend Katherine S. Dreier described her as a “half-abstract painter”—an apt characterization of a body of work that defies art-historical conventions. As part of the Parisian avant-garde, Duchamp explored cubist fragments of cityscapes and interiors in her early works before turning to Dadaism. Her pieces combine painting with poetry and experiment with diverse media and materials. While her painting increasingly shifted toward abstraction in the 1910s, she remained anchored to visual reference points. In 1922, for reasons unknown, she made an unexpected break with Dadaism and turned to figurative painting, often infused with ironic undertones.
For the first time, Suzanne Duchamp’s oeuvre is presented in its full diversity through a comprehensive retrospective, uniting her Dadaist works with earlier and later creative phases. New research has uncovered numerous previously unknown or long-overlooked works, which are now being presented to the public in this breadth.
Featuring around 50 paintings, 20 works on paper, and rare archival materials and vintage photographs, the exhibition offers a broad spectrum of Duchamp’s work. Highlights include rare loans from international museums and private collections, such as MoMA in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The retrospective was conceived by guest curator Talia Kwartler in collaboration with Kunsthaus curator Cathérine Hug. It was realized in close partnership with the Association Duchamp Villon Crotti and the Kunsthalle Schirn in Frankfurt am Main, where it is presented under the curation of Ingrid Pfeiffer (10 October 2025 – 11 January 2026). The exhibition at Kunsthaus Zürich runs until September 7, 2025.
Suzanne Duchamp Retrospective at Kunsthaus Zürich. Zürich (Switzerland), June 5, 2024.
