The Brothers Duchamp: Jacques Villon, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Marcel Duchamp by Pierre Cabanne, and: Jacques Villon ed. by Daniel Robbins (review)

Books 339 A prize for drawing at the village flower show and a bursary obtained in a school competition enabled him to buy his first set of oils and encouraged him to hope that he might become an artist, but at 14yearsold he beganwork asa messengerboy in the North Bank of Scotland, Aberdeen. Twelveyears of uncongenial employment followed,relieved only by his spare-time reading on art at the Free Library and night classesat Grey’s School of Art. A successful oil portrait of his beloved grandmother led to his first commission and lessons from a local artist, which were terminated by the devastating comment that McBey would be ‘wasting his time by coming again’. Undiscouraged, in 1902he read Lelanne’s Treatise OH Etching. which inspired him to make his own illustrations in that medium. With a sheet ofcopper, two darning needles and other improvised equipment he etched his first scene, the docks at Aberdeen, and printed it on the Bank‘s copying press. Etching became his favourite medium, though his output was severely limited by the cost of plates and by the secrecy necessitated by the ridicule of his colleagues brought up to consider art a ‘frivolity’. In 1905one etching was accepted by the Royal Scottish Academy, and the Glasgow Institute hung another two, but, in spite of resultant commissions, he could not yet take the risk of trying to live by his art. The turning point came when the Bank sent him to London. From there, for a few crowded days, barely able to exist on his small amount of money, he visited Paris and its art galleries.The experienceadded to his growing realization that the lifeof a bank clerk wasinsupportable. Hegavein his notice and, with €200that he had,scraped from his wages, he went to Holland, where he sketched and painted in Amsterdam, resorting in bad weather to the Rijksmuseum to study Rembrandt. In 1910 he returned to Leith but found little recognition for the etchings of his Dutch subjects,and, after a one-man exhibition in May 191I, he went to London to try and establish his name there. At this point the autobiography ends and contact is lost with a strong and likeable character who has written an illuminating account of the struggles and opportunities open to a self-taught artist from a humble background at the beginning of the 20th century. The story of the rest of McBey’s life and the important part that he played in the revivalof interest inetching in Britain isably told by the book‘s editor Nicholas Barker, with the help of the artist’s diaries and of memories recounted by those close to him. The Brothers Duchamp: Jacques Villon, Raymond DuchampVillon , Marcel Duchamp.Pierre Cabanne. Trans. from French by Helga and Dinah Harrison. New York Graphic Society, Boston, Mass., 1976. 270 pp.. illus. E34.75. Jacques Villon. Daniel Robbins, ed. Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Mass., 1976. 223 pp.. illus. Reviewed by John F. Moffltt* The first book is a rather high priced but amiably rambling and usually interesting chronological accounting of the Duchamp family. It describes a family that, as a unit worked, played and occasionally squabbled together, and forged three impressive artistic talents of 20th-century art. It may seem odd that Marcel (1887-1968), easily the best known of the three, receives less emphasis in the book, no doubt due to Cabanne’s taking into account the vast amount already published on him, including Cabanne’s Entretie/isaver Marcel Duchmitp (1967)[published in English as Dialogues with Marcel Ducharnp (New York: Viking Press, 1971)]. On the other hand, Cabanne’s account of the tragically brief career of Raymond Duchamp-Villon (1876-19-18) as a sculptor will enlighten those who know of him only from occasional mentions in surveysof 20thcentury sculpture. A fuller exposition of Duchamp-Villon’s artistic development, however, can be found in the book by G. H. Hamilton and W. C. Agee entitled *Dept of Art, New Mexico State University, Box 3572, LdS Cruces, NM 88003, U.S.A. RrtJ3/ilo/tdDc/cl~r~/~~[~-~illott (New York: Walker, 1967). It is unfortunate that Cabanne has missed the opportunity to give more than the...