Alexina Duchamp
Alexina " Teeny " Duchamp, born Alexina Sattler, ( born January 6, 1906 in Cincinnati, Ohio, † December 20, 1995 in Villiers- sous- Grez in Paris) was an American art dealer, the first wife of the art dealer Pierre Matisse and second wife of artist and chess player, Marcel Duchamp.
Life and work
Alexina Sattler was born in 1906 as the youngest of six daughters of the famous eye surgeon Robert Sattler and his second wife Agnes Mitchell in Cincinnati. Because of their low birth weight, she received the nickname " Teeny " by her mother.
1921 was allowed to visit the school in Paris Alexinas sister Agnes, and the following year the fifteen- year-old joined her. They met for the first time in the winter Marcel Duchamp on a ball that had aligned Mariette Mills, a friend of her mother. After spending a year studying at the School of Applied Arts in Vienna, she returned to Paris and took sculpture classes at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere.
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Her artistic activity gave it up after 1929 the art dealer Pierre Matisse, the eldest son of Henri Matisse married. The marriage produced three children Jacqueline, Paul and Peter were born. In 1949 the divorce, as Pierre had an affair with Patricia Matta, the wife of Roberto Matta started. As compensation they received the villa and many valuable paintings. In the following years she worked as an art dealer and represented, for example, Constantin Brancusi and Joan Miró.
1951 brought Max Ernst and his wife, Dorothea Tanning, who were on a visit to Alexinas house in Lebanon, New Jersey, invited Marcel Duchamp as a guest. Teeny and Duchamp fell in love and married on January 16, 1954 in New York. It was the second marriage for both. Duchamp, the father of three stepchildren was in this way, was granted U.S. citizenship at the end of the year. From 1958, the couple spent summer vacations in Cadaqués, where they met Salvador Dalí. In 1959 she moved their residence in New York from 327 East 58th Street to 28 West 10th Street.
After Duchamp's death in 1968, Alexina Duchamp moved its residence to Villiers- sous- Grez, near Paris, where they put together an archive that contains photographs and other documents on the life and work of Marcel Duchamp. The collection is housed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art She continued relations with the friends of her husband gone, about to the artists Jasper Johns, Richard Hamilton, the composer John Cage and choreographer Merce Cunningham. Alexina Duchamp survived her husband by many years. She died aged 89 in 1995 in Villiers- sous- Grez. Your family grave stone lies in the cemetery of Rouen.