Alexina Duchamp

Alexina "Teeny" Duchamp (1906 – 1995) was the second wife of artist and chess player, Marcel Duchamp. She was born Alexina Sattler in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1906. The youngest daughter of prominent surgeon Robert Sattler, Alexina was nicknamed "Teeny" by her mother because of her low birth weight.

She went to Paris to study art in 1921 and there she first met Marcel Duchamp in 1923 at a ball given in her honor by Mariette Mills, the mother of a close friend. In 1929 Teeny married Pierre Matisse, the eldest son of Fauve artist Henri Matisse. They had three children: Jacqueline, Paul, and Peter. In 1949 Pierre and Teeny separated due to Pierre's infidelity with Patricia Matta. She received in the subsequent divorce settlement many important paintings.

She worked for a time as an agent/broker for artists such as Constantin Brancusi and Joan Miró.

In the autumn of 1951 she was invited by Dorothea Tanning to go on a weekend trip. It was on that trip that she once again met Duchamp, and romance developed shortly thereafter. They were both avid chess players. Teeny and Duchamp married in New York City on January 16, 1954. They were together until his death in 1968.

References

*Tomkins, Calvin, "Duchamp: A Biography". Henry Holt and Company, Inc., 1996. ISBN 0-8050-5789-7