Marcel Duchamp Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2

Gallery I
French Paintings and Sculpture

In large exhibitions like the Armory Show, the controversy usually revolved around one room; at the Armory the hub was Gallery I. This narrowed focus meant many artists were forgotten in the rush to identify the most memorable works from the show. The 1905 Salon d'Automne, where entries numbered over 2,000, was the exhibition where Louis Vauxcelles exclaimed, "Donatello among the wild beasts!" upon entering Room VII and seeing Italianate sculptures surrounded by the paintings of Matisse, Derain, Vlaminck, Marquet, Manguin, and Camoin (Altshuler 10). Fauve artists outside Room VII were generally overlooked at the 1905 exhibition. Similarly, cubism came into common parlance during the 1911 Salon des Independants exhibition where Metzinger, Gleizes, Le Fauconnier, Leger, and Delaunay, and Laurencin showed their work in Room 41 (Altshuler 28). Although Picasso and Braque are now credited as the originators of cubism, the artists in Room 41 were often considered the founders of this movement.

Crowds were reportedly so large in Gallery I that one could barely get a glimpse at the "success by scandal," Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (above). By the third week, the painting had gained such notoriety that it was bought sight unseen by Frederic Torrey, an art dealer from California. Duchamp's painting was punned to death—a work entitled "Food Descending a Staircase" was shown at an exhibition parodying the most outrageous works at the Armory, running concurrently with the show at The Lighthouse School for the Blind (Brown, Story 141). In American Art News, there were prizes offered to anyone who could find the nude (Brown, Story 136).