New In the Sculpture Garden
New In the Sculpture Garden
 Although the galleries are closed for renovation until the grand reopening in November, one of the museum’s most recent acquisitions, Raymond Duchamp-Villon’s Le Cheval Majeur (The Large Horse), can be seen in the Josephine F. Ford Sculpture Garden, located on the College for Creative Studies campus across John R Street from the DIA. This 1914 work, the French artist’s most important and influential achievement, has long been recognized by scholars as a landmark of cubist sculpture.
Duchamp-Villon transformed the natural forms of a horse into the elements of a machine, a not uncommon theme in the work of avant-garde artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Duchamp-Villon took his particular stylistic cues from Umberto Boccioni and the Italian Futurists, artists who venerated the machine and celebrated the technological era by infusing their work with dynamism, energy, and motion. The group equated the imagery of animal and machine as described in one Futurist manifesto: “broad-chested locomotives prancing on the rails, like huge steel horses bridled with long tubes.” In the DIA sculpture, Duchamp-Villon sets aside representation to better emphasize the physical power and strength of the horse in one of the purest demonstrations of the Futurists’ notion of beauty in machines, power, and speed, expressed in a cubist style that demands viewing from all sides.
Pierre-Maurice-Raymond Duchamp-Villon came from an artistic family that included his older brother Jacques Villon and his younger brother Marcel Duchamp. Initially intending to become a physician, he discovered his true vocation as a sculptor. In 1901, he established his first studio in Paris and changed his name to Duchamp-Villon to differentiate himself from his artist brothers. Essentially self-taught, Duchamp-Villon was recognized early in his career for his sensitivity and talent for capturing likenesses.
Early portrait busts show the influence of the expressive realism of Rodin. After 1910, Duchamp-Villon’s traditional approach gave way to one influenced by the new possibilities brought to sculpture by cubism. His forms became reductive and reliant upon geometry. Among the important works from this period is the impressive Torso of a Young Man (1910), the first of his sculptures to be recognized by his contemporaries as authentically “modern.”
Duchamp-Villon, along with sculptors Picasso and Brancusi, adapted the principles of cubist painting—multiple viewpoints, fragmented forms—into sculptural mass.
In 1906, Duchamp-Villon and his brother Jacques Villon established a studio residence in the Paris suburb of Puteaux, west of the Bois de Boulogne, which became a gathering place for their fellow artists and friends. Thanks to Duchamp-Villon’s influence, this group was able to promote cubist style by showing together in the 1911 Salon d’Automne and later in the Section d’Or in 1912. For the 1913 Salon d’Automne, Duchamp-Villon designed four large wall bas-relief sculptures, The Cat, The Dog, The Doves, and The Parrot. The wood version of The Cat was purchased by Robert H. Tannahill in 1946 for the DIA collection.
Duchamp-Villon had apparently expressed a wish for the final version of his horse sculpture, called simply Cheval (Horse) to be cast in large scale, but died before he could see it happen. In 1930, the first enlargement was cast in bronze under the supervision of Jacques Villon as Le Grand Cheval. A second edition, slightly larger in scale, was cast in 1966 as Cheval Majeur under the supervision of Marcel Duchamp. The DIA’s work is from the latter casting and was previously owned by Marcel Duchamp’s wife.
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