Nine Malic Moulds
1963 (replica of 1914-15 original)
Marcel Duchamp (French, 1887-1968)
Not on View

The second of three works on glass, Nine Malic Moulds is a study for the Bachelor Apparatus of The Bride Stripped Bare of Her Bachelors, Even, also known as The Large Glass, from 1915–23. In The Large Glass, Duchamp created an artwork divided into two sections; above, the bride waits for a suitor; below, the bachelors jockey for her attention in the Bachelor Apparatus. In the act of vying for attention, they go through three emotional states—intention, fear and desire. The bachelors’ intentions are to meet the bride, but fear of consequences holds them back. This fear can only be countered by the strength of their desire for her.

Nine Malic Moulds represents nine types of jobs that could be held by men, these bachelors, in 1915: a priest, a department-store delivery boy, a gendarme, a cuirassier, a policeman, an undertaker, a flunky, a busboy and a stationmaster. Duchamp viewed each shape as a mold for a person to be pressed into and formed.

The original Nine Malic Moulds, made in 1914–15, was composed of oil painted onto sheet lead, with lead wire, sandwiched between two sheets of glass. The Norton Simon Museum’s version was made in 1963 for the Pasadena Art Museum retrospective, under the artist’s supervision.

Details

  • Artist Name: Marcel Duchamp (French, 1887-1968)
  • Title: Nine Malic Moulds
  • Date: 1963 (replica of 1914-15 original)
  • Medium: Color photograph between glass
  • Dimensions: 25-1/2 x 40-1/4 in. (64.8 x 102.2 cm)
  • Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, Museum Purchase
  • Accession Number: P.1963.38
  • Copyright: © Association Marcel Duchamp / ADAGP, Paris / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 2017 Reproduction, including downloading of ARS works is prohibited by copyright laws and international conventions without the express written permission of Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Object Information

Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, 1965-1975;
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena.

Marcel Duchamp: A Retrospective Exhibition

  • Pasadena Art Museum, 1963-10-08 to 1963-11-03

Cult of the Machine: Precision in American Art

  • Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum, 2018-03-17 to 2018-08-12

Marcel Duchamp Festival

  • Irvine, University of California Irivine, Art Gallery, 1970-11-06 to 1971-12-01

A View of the Century

  • Pasadena Art Museum, 1964-11-24 to 1964-12-19

Works from the Pasadena Art Museum

  • Vancouver Art Gallery, 1970-04-14 to 1970-05-10

Marcel Duchamp Redux

  • Norton Simon Museum, 2008-04-25 to 2008-12-08

Pasadena to Santa Barbara: A Selected History of Art in Southern California, 1951-1969

  • Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 2012-02-11 to 2012-05-06

Duchamp to Pop

  • Norton Simon Museum, 2016-03-04 to 2016-08-29

Selections from the Permanent Collection

  • Pasadena Art Museum, 1971-07-13 to 1971-09-19

Impossible Realities: Marcel Duchamp and the Surrealist Tradition

  • Norton Simon Museum, 1991-07-04 to 1992-03-08

Permanent and Loan Collection, 1973

  • Pasadena Museum of Modern Art, 1973-01-30 to 1973-12-31
  • Joyce, Julie et al., Pasadena to Santa Barbara: A Selected History of Art in Southern California, 1951-1969, 2012, p. 119
  • Emma Acker, with Sue Canterbury, Adrian Daub, and Lauren Palmor, Cult of the Machine: Precisionism and American Art, 2018, p. 74

Additional Artwork by Artist

Bottle Dryer (Bottlerack) Marcel Duchamp 1963 (replica of 1914 original)
Boîte alerte (Mailbox) Marcel Duchamp 1959
Boîte-en-valise (Box in a Suitcase) Marcel Duchamp 1961 (original 1941)

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