The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 14, 2025

The Seventh Face of the Die: Poems-Decoupages

1936

Georges Hugnet

(French, 1906–1974)

and Marcel Duchamp

(French, 1887–1968)
20th century
Book: photomechanical offset and rotogravure typography with original gelatin silver prints by Marcel Duchamp as back and front covers and original collage by Hugnet
Overall: 29.3 x 21.4 x 1.5 cm (11 9/16 x 8 7/16 x 9/16 in.)
Gift of David Raymond 2007.280
© 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Location: Not on view

Description

Hugnet devised a verbal-visual form that he called poem-decoupage by collaging cut-up lines of poetry and pictorial elements. The left-hand pages of the book bear texts and small illustrations printed in letterpress, a relief process that adds tactility and physical depth to the page. The right-hand pages contain poem-decoupages printed in collotype occasionally adorned with hand coloring. A flatter, photographic process, collotype imparts harmony to the disparate media Hugnet employed in the original collages of photographs, wood engravings, magazine advertisements, and text from newspapers.

Dice, often symbols of chance in Dada and Surrealist art, have only six faces. Twenty deluxe copies of The Seventh Face of the Die had a second exterior set of covers composed of hand-colored photographs enclosed within sheets of clear cellulose acetate. Created by Duchamp, the covers can be construed as references to the denuded female form in his famous transparent sculpture, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass). An image of Duchamp’s sculpture Why Not Sneeze, Rrose Sélavy?, reproduced on the original cover, suggests that the book itself be considered a form of assisted ready-made. Indeed, like Why Not Sneeze it comprises a group of mundane, industrially produced objects—in this case printed words and images—that have been selected, joined, and modified by the artist. Each of the 20 deluxe copies was also accompanied by an original collage by Hugnet. The text here reads, from top to bottom:
To the women who employ
With all the dresses
Black magic
Speaks, hears and sees
  • Robert Shapazian [1942-2010], Los Angeles, CA
    Private collection, Canada
    (Roth Horowitz Gallery, New York, NY)
    2007
    David Raymond [b.1979], New York, NY
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E. Hinson, Ian Walker, and Lisa Kurzner. Forbidden Games: Surrealist and Modernist Photography : the David Raymond Collection in the Cleveland Museum of Art. 2014. cat. no. 78, p. 120
    Krauss, Rosalind E., Jane Livingston, and Dawn Ades. L'amour Fou: Photography & Surrealism. Washington, D.C.: Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1985.
  • Forbidden Games: Surrealist and Modernist Photography. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 19, 2014-January 11, 2015).
    Chaplick Collection: Beuys C'est la Vie. Andrew Roth Art Gallery (October 16-November 22, 2003).
    L'Amour Fou: Photography and Surrealism. Corcoran Gallery of Art (September 14-November 16, 1985).
  • {{cite web|title=The Seventh Face of the Die: Poems-Decoupages|url=false|author=Georges Hugnet, Marcel Duchamp|year=1936|access-date=14 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2007.280