DUCHAMP-VILLON, RAYMOND

born Nov. 5, 1876, Paris died Oct. 7, 1918, Cannes, Fr. original name Raymond Duchamp French sculptor, who was one of the first major modern sculptors to apply the principles of Cubism in his work. In 1900 he gave up medicine for sculpture, often working closely with his brothers, the artists Marcel and Gaston Duchamp (the last-named being better known by his pseudonym, Jacques Villon). Duchamp-Villon was first influenced by the work of Auguste Rodin. His progression to more simplified forms can be seen in such portrait heads as Baudelaire (1911; Alexander M. Bing, New York City) and Maggy (1911; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City), which was virtually reduced to simple geometric shapes. The Seated Woman (1914; Yale University Art Gallery) shows the growing influence on Duchamp-Villon of the Cubist painters' characteristic method of abstracting form out of the analytically dissected parts of the object depicted. His move toward abstraction was fully achieved in his masterpiece, Horse (1914), which reduces forms to their geometric essentials and integrates space into the mass of the work. He also began to apply Cubist principles to architecture but was killed in World War I before his experiments could be realized.