L.H.O.O.Q..

About L.H.O.O.Q.

L.H.O.O.Q. is a work of art by Marcel Duchamp. First conceived in 1919, the work is one of what Duchamp referred to as readymades, or more specifically a rectified ready-made. The readymade involves taking mundane, often utilitarian objects not generally considered to be art and transforming them, by adding to them, changing them, or simply renaming and reorienting them and placing them in an appropriate setting. In L.H.O.O.Q. the found object is a cheap postcard reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci's early 16th-century painting Mona Lisa onto which Duchamp drew a moustache and beard in pencil and appended the title.