L.H.O.O.Q. a late interview (Schwarz 203), Duchamp gives a loose translation of "L.H.O.O.Q." as "there is fire down below". Francis Picabia, in an attempt to publish "L.H.O.O.Q." in his magazine 391 could not wait for the work to be sent from New York City, so with the permission of Duchamp, drew the moustache on Mona Lisa himself (forgetting the goatee). Picabia wrote underneath "Tableau Dada par Marcel Duchamp". Duchamp noticed the missing goatee. Two decades later, Duchamp corrected the omission on Picabia's replica, found by Jean Arp at a bookstore. Duchamp drew the goatee in black ink with a fountain pen,
Marcel Duchamp erotic encounter between a bride and her nine bachelors. A performance of the stage adaptation of Roussel's novel "Impressions d'Afrique," which Duchamp attended in 1912, inspired the piece. Notes, sketches and plans for the work were drawn on his studio walls as early as 1913. In order to concentrate on the work free from material obligations, Duchamp found work as a librarian while living in France. After immigrating to the United States in 1915, he began work on the piece financed by the support of the Arensbergs. The piece is partly constructed as a retrospective of Duchamp's works, including a