Alexina Duchamp, widow of French artist Marcel Duchamp, died at her home in Villiers-sous-Grez, near Paris, on Wednesday. She was 89.
As a former daughter-in-law of Henri Matisse, the widow of Marcel Duchamp and a close friend of John Cage and Jasper Johns, she was in her later years the unquestioned doyenne of the survivors of a great age in art, dance and music.
Mrs. Duchamp had close ties to Philadelphia and took pride in being an honorary trustee of its Museum of Art, which has by far the largest collection of Marcel Duchamp’s work. She was delighted when in 1967 Duchamp’s last major work, the scenographic “Etant Donnes” (“Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas”) was installed there.
“Etant Donnes” had been built in secret in New York between 1964 and 1966, at a time when Duchamp was believed to have stopped working. During much of its construction Mrs. Duchamp was the artist’s sole confidant.
Alexina Sattler was born in Cincinnati on Jan. 6, 1906.
She at first thought of becoming an artist and for a time studied sculpture in Paris.
In December 1929 she married the son of Henri Matisse, Pierre, who was to be a distinguished art dealer in New York for 50 years. When Matisse was mobilized in Paris at the outbreak of World War II, she ran the gallery herself for some months.
After her divorce from Pierre Matisse in 1949, she married Marcel Duchamp in 1954. They lived in New York, Paris and, during the summer, in northern Spain. After the death of Duchamp in 1968, she became close to the composer John Cage.
She is survived by the three children of her first marriage.
