Spellbound by Marcel: Duchamp, Love, and Art

In 1913 Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase exploded through the American art world. This is the story of how he followed the painting to New York two years later, enchanted the Arensberg salon, and-almost incidentally-changed art forever.

In 1915, a group of French artists fled war-torn Europe for New York. In the few months between their arrival-and America's entry into the war in April 1917-they pushed back the boundaries of the possible, in both life and art. The vortex of this...