A major retrospective bringing together over 300 works by Marcel Duchamp, including his famous readymades and paintings, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Marcel Duchamp is back at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, with a major retrospective running from October 10, 2026, through January 31, 2027. It's the first big U.S. survey of his work in over 50 years—the last one was a joint effort between the PMA and MoMA back in 1973-74. This one is co-produced with MoMA and the Centre Pompidou, and it's held in the museum's Main Building, across the Dorrance Galleries and Galleries 281-283.
There are more than 300 works on display, covering six decades of his career. You'll find the big ones: Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2) from 1912, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (1915-23)—better known as The Large Glass—and the infamous Fountain from 1917. L.H.O.O.Q. (1919) is there too, along with Box in a Valise (1935-41) and Étant donnés (1946-66). The show centers on Box in a Valise, the miniature portable museum he put together while moving to the U.S. to escape the war, and it closes with Étant donnés, the room-sized diorama he built in secret and that the PMA installed in 1969.
If you're not familiar with the man himself, Duchamp was a rule-breaking French modernist associated with Cubism, Dada, and Surrealism. He gave up oil painting at twenty-five to invent the "readymade"—ordinary manufactured objects he altered and displayed as art. He also created the female alter ego Rrose Sélavy, a pun on "Eros, c'est la vie," who sat for drag photographs by the South Philadelphia-born surrealist Man Ray. Duchamp guided the Arensberg collection to the PMA as a gift in 1950 and made Philadelphia his permanent home; the museum now holds the world's largest repository of his work.
Every week we pick 🏆 the 5 best 🏆 things to do in Philadelphia and send them to your inbox. Just one weekly email, no spam.
By submitting your email, you accept our Privacy Policy
Tickets are $35 for a timed entry, which includes general admission to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for your entire visit and a one-hour timed-entry window for the exhibition, with up to two hours to queue and view. From Friday through Monday, the ticket also includes admission to the Rodin Museum. It's free for museum members.
