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Marcel Duchamp, Tate Gallery, London

Photograph
1966 (photographed), 1999 (printed)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

For over a quarter of the century, the photographs of Michael Cooper have been identified with the chronology of the Rolling Stones. His documentation of the years he knew them, from 1963 to his death a decade later, has ensured that his name is synonymous with the band.

He was also involved with the London art scene of the sixties. The Robert Fraser Gallery in Duke Street, Mayfair - to which Cooper became attached in 1964 - played host to the incipient Pop Art movement as well as to establish names such as Jean Dubuffet and Rene Magritte.

This portrait shows the artist Marcel Duchamp surrounded by a collection of his sculptures at an exhibition at the Tate gallery in 1968.

Object details

Category
Object type
TitleMarcel Duchamp, Tate Gallery, London (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Gelatin-silver print
Brief description
'Marcel Duchamp, Tate Gallery, London', gelatin-silver print, Michael Cooper, London, 1966
Physical description
Black and white photograph of Marcel Duchamp wearing a tweed jacket, sitting down and surrounded by various of his sculptures, being installed for an exhibition
Dimensions
  • Sheet height: 37.2cm
  • Sheet width: 47.2cm
Style
Gallery label
(1999)
Michael Cooper 1941-1973

For over a quarter of a century, the photographs of Michael Cooper have been identified with the chronology of the Rolling Stones. His documentation of the years that he knew them, from 1963 to his death a decade later, has ensured that his name is synonymous with the band. Part of its fact - and its mythology.

He was also involved with the London art scene of the sixties. The Robert Fraser Gallery in Duke Street, Mayfair - to which Cooper became attached in 1964 - played host to the incipient Pop Art movement as well as to established names such as Jean Dubuffet and Rene Magritte.

Cooper typically photographed in available light and in a documentary style. He turned photojournalist proper - though commissioned by no-one - to record two occasions when the counter-culture stood firm against the establishment, calling for the cessation of American military involvement in Vietnam. Cooper turned his camera on the riots at the Democratic Convention, Chicago, in the summer of 1968 and the disturbances in the same year outside the American embassy in London.

The subjects of Michael Cooper's photographs were, as he said "not just faces that I have photographed but people I have worked with or become involved with on a very personal level". They are an intimate chronicle of the cultural and political climate of a vibrant moment of history.

Robin Muir
Credit line
Given by Adam Cooper
Historical context
Marcel Duchamp's work only became known to a larger audience during the the 1960s, the last decade of his life. The exhibition of his work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1954, followed by the publication of the first major monograph on the artist in 1959, established Duchamp as a cult figure among avant-garde artists in both the USA and Europe. A generation of painters and sculptors in the 1950s and 1960s professed their admiration for him, including Richard Hamilton. Hamilton, who made a replica of Duchamp's Bride stripped bare... installation in 1960 was behind the exhibition of Duchamp's work at London's Tate gallery in 1968.
Production
Attribution note: Print made from original negative for Triple Exposure exhibition at V&A, 1999
Subject depicted
Summary
For over a quarter of the century, the photographs of Michael Cooper have been identified with the chronology of the Rolling Stones. His documentation of the years he knew them, from 1963 to his death a decade later, has ensured that his name is synonymous with the band.

He was also involved with the London art scene of the sixties. The Robert Fraser Gallery in Duke Street, Mayfair - to which Cooper became attached in 1964 - played host to the incipient Pop Art movement as well as to establish names such as Jean Dubuffet and Rene Magritte.

This portrait shows the artist Marcel Duchamp surrounded by a collection of his sculptures at an exhibition at the Tate gallery in 1968.
Bibliographic reference
Michael Cooper - You Are Here: The London Sixties by Robin Muir, Schirmer/Mosel, 1999
Collection
Accession number
E.2061-2004

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Record createdMarch 17, 2004
Record URL
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