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 like parallels and distorting the object. The object is completely stretched out, as if elastic. The lines follow each other in parallels, while changing subtly to form the movement, or the form of the young man in question. I also used this procedure in the "Nude Descending a Staircase". In his 1911, "Portrait of Chess Players" ("Portrait de joueurs d'échecs") there is the Cubist overlapping frames and multiple perspectives of his two brothers playing chess, but to that Duchamp added elements conveying the unseen mental activity of the players. (Notably, "échec" is French for "failure".) Works from this time also