Suzanne Duchamp (1889 Blainville-Crevon – 1963 Neuilly-sur-Seine) left behind a dazzling body of work that has found its way into some of the world’s most famous collections but is still known only to specialists. The sister of Marcel Duchamp, Raymond Duchamp-Villon and Jacques Villon, she was in the vanguard of her times and influenced art history as an exceptional Dada artist.

Duchamp’s visual idiom is subtle, delicate, cryptic, humorous and aesthetically appealing. The last large exhibition devoted to her work was in 1983 at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and was also presented at Kunsthalle Bern in a show entitled ‘Tabu Dada’. In collaboration with guest curator Talia Kwartler, the Kunsthaus stages the first retrospective in honour of a multifaceted artist who has for so long remained in her brother’s shadow. Zurich, the birthplace of the Dada Movement, seems the ideal place to highlight Duchamp’s adventurous spirit. Many of the approximately 60 works on display are being shown in public for the first time.

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Ill.: Suzanne Duchamp, Joy Factory, 1920, Galerie 1900 – 2000, Paris, © Suzanne Duchamp / 2024, ProLitteris, Zurich