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Marcel Duchamp: Rubber Stamp Chess Set In 1913, French artist Marcel Duchamp achieved overnight notoriety when his painting, Nude Descending a Staircase, became the sensation of the Armosy Show, the exhibition that introduced Modern Art to America. On August 13th, 1918, Duchamp boarded to boat from New York City to Buenos Aires. In a letter postmarked from Argentina on January 7, 1919, Duchamp wrote to Louise Arsenberg, the wife of his New York patron, “I am also going to join local chess club down here to try my hand again. I had made up a set of rubber stamps (which I designed), with which I set up the games. I’m sending here an example for Walter.” By designing a rubber stamp set in order to facilitate the prospect of playing chess by mail. Duchamp initiated one of the first postal actions incorporating the use of the rubber stamp medium. Concept and Design: Picasso Gaglione. Text: John Held, Jr. Production: Diana Mars and Stephen Caravello.