Jacques Villon

Gaston Émile Duchamp

(Damville - Eure: 31 July 1875; Puteaux - Hauts-de-Seine: 9 June 1963)

Born Gaston Émile Duchamp, second son of Eugène and Lucie Duchamp, the future Jacques Villon is the elder brother of the sculptor Raymond Duchamp-Villon (1876-1918), the painter, sculptor and author Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) and the painter Suzanne Duchamp (1889-1963).

In 1904-1905, he studied at the Académie Julian. In 1911, he organized a discussion group at home with his brothers Raymond and Marcel, which met regularly with artists and critics such as Francis Picabia, Robert Delaunay, Fernand Léger and others who would soon be known as the "Académie Julian". group of Puteaux.

In 1913, Villon, seven large dry points, cubist masterpieces, where the shapes break into obscured pyramidal planes. He exhibited at the Armory Show in New York and his fame grew so much that by the 1930s he was better known in the United States than in Europe.

The Louis Carré Gallery organized an exhibition of his work in Paris in 1944. In 1950, he received the Carnegie Prize and in 1954 he was named Commander of the Legion of Honour. The following year, he received the commission for the stained glass windows of the cathedral in Metz, France. In 1956, he was awarded the Grand Prize at the Venice Biennale.