Brother of Jacques Villon and Raymond Duchamp-Villon. He studied part-time at the Academie Julian, Paris, while working as a librarian at the Bibliotheque Ste-Genevieve. He abandoned painting in the 19230s but contributed to Surrealist exhibitions in 1938 and 1947. His 1st paintings (1911-12), influenced by the Cubist, analysed the movements of forms in space. He was with Picabia, the leader of the New York Dada and surrealist movement - he moved permanently to the U.S.A. in 1913. From 1946 to 1966 he was secretly engaged in "Etant donnes: 1. La Chute d'eau/ 2. Le Gaz d'eclairage", a 3- dimensional mixed-media assemblage which is viewed through two peepholes in an old Spanish door. The scene revealed is a sun-lit landscape with a waterfall and in the foreground the realistic form of a female nude.