We have some idea about the 17 urinals—17 or so, I haven’t kept up. But where are Marcel Duchamp’s shovels? Arturo Schwarz produced editions of eight replicas of 14 Duchamp readymades in 1964, originally offered in a complete set for $25,000. Were there really only eight? In Advance of a Broken Arm (Schwarz, 1964) is listed as the fourth version. Where are the previous ones?
[The most concentrated source of info on Duchamps comes, unsurprisingly, from Francis Naumann, who has been researching and trading in Duchamp’s works for decades. Check, for example, his 1999 book, The Art of Making Art In The Age of Mechanical Reproduction, which steps through Duchamp’s physical production chronologically. Or Naumann’s readymade market recap from 2003.]
I think there are 16 shovels to account for. 12 exist; 2 are exhibition copies; and 2 are lost. Here they are in roughly chronological order [of where they ended up]:
The first shovel, acquired, we’re told, from a hardware store on the Upper West Side and hung in Duchamp’s studio in 1915, where it set his readymade making mind racing, was lost.
Duchamp made a second version in 1945 for Katherine Dreier, by buying another shovel and titling and signing it. She left it at Yale.
A shovel was purchased for a three week exhibition at the Time Life Building in NYC in 1959, and appears to have been discarded without documentation, and without Duchamp recognizing it with his signature. It also doesn’t seem to factor into Schwarz’s version count.
The third version, then is the 1963 shovel Ulf Linde made for the Moderna Museet under the old system of “Make or buy it, and Marcel will sign it.” Schwarz mostly put a stop to that.
The National Gallery of Canada acquired one as part of a complete set of Schwarz readymades in 1971.
The Art Museum of the University of Indiana in Bloomington acquired one in 1971, also as part of a complete set.
Donald Judd had one by 1981, it seems, which is now in the Judd Foundation collection at 101 Spring St.
The Fondation Maillol in Paris acquired one, and three other readymades after a failed Sotheby’s auction of Galleria Schwarz’ inventory in 1985. [cf Naumann’s 2000 image credit here, where it is listed as in the private collection assembled by Dina Vierny.]
The Pompidou acquired one of Schwarz’s in 1986, which was Duchamp’s own example from outside the edition.
The Staatlichemuseum Schwerin acquired one along with Ronny van de Velde’s extensive Duchamp collection in 1993.
The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto acquired one in 1993?
MoMA only got theirs in 2006, unveiled as part of the new Taniguchi building, IIRC. [Their Bicycle Wheel is from 1951, though, a post-Schwarz gift by trustee/dealer Sidney Janis in 1967.]
Joseph Kosuth has one, at least for another couple of weeks.
So that leaves just one [of the (declared) Schwarz edition] unaccounted for: it was Arturo’s own shovel, and it is in a private collection.
Two additional Schwarz shovels went to the Israel Museum and the Galleria Nazionale in Rome, presumably never to depart.
So that means three shovels are technically in private collections [four if you count the Judd Foundation]. Is there a possibility of one of the other two/three coming to market? Sure, but it really does seem like this sale of Joseph Kosuth’s shovel is the only one for a generation.
[UPDATE: Sold for $3.075m, down from the $17-20 million it had been offered for privately. nice work, everybody.]