The Blind Man: New York Dada, 1917

The Blind Man was a key magazine of the early 20th century, the product of a rich network of proto-Dada, modernist and other avant-garde New York salons and publications that introduced audiences to Dada in the US.

Produced by Marcel Duchamp, Beatrice Wood and Henri-Pierre Roché, only two issues of the Blind Man ever appeared, but these included a who’s who of the New York and Paris avant-gardes: Mina Loy, Walter Conrad Arensberg, Francis Picabia, Gabrielle Buffet, Allen Norton, Clara Tice, Alfred Stieglitz, Charles Demuth, Charles Duncan, Erik Satie, Carl Van Vechten and Louise Norton all appeared in its pages.

Allegedly, the fate of the Blind Man was decided in a chess game between Roché and Picabia (who was about to put out his own Dada publication, 391). And the magazine went out with a bang―its final issue has gone down in art history for featuring Stieglitz’s iconic photograph of Duchamp’s “Fountain” and a defense of that work, seen now as perhaps the most important artwork of the 20th century.

The Blind Man: New York Dada, 1917 brings back the magazine in a facsimile reprint, along with reproductions of the Ridgefield Gazook and the poster for the Blind Man’s Ball designed by Beatrice Wood, all packaged together in a handsome boxed set.