Marcel Duchamp was born into a family of artists. Starting his career by drawing cartoons for Paris periodicals, he ultimately painted in multiple different styles, most notably including Cubism, Surrealism, and Dada. The painting that gained him the most notoriety, at first rejected or unnoticed in Paris galleries, is "Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2." It was a hit in New York City. He continued to work with nudes and sexual themes--something that was traditionally not acceptable within Cubism. After this, he moved to mechanical and geometric forms, leading to the first Ready-Made, a form of art in which an artist chooses a normal object that becomes art simply because the artist has chosen and displayed it. After the start of WWI, Duchamp moved to the United States. He would continue to produce art as a member of the avante-garde both in New York and Paris, throughout the rest of his life. He was also an avid chess player. Duchamp was only minimally influential--predominantly among his close friends--until the 1950s/1960s. After an exhibition of his work at each of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and MOMA in NYC, his reach broadened. He influenced such artists as Andy Warhol, and the development of Pop art.
Source: http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A1634&page_number=1&template_id=6&sort_order=1&displayall=1#skipToContent
