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Fountain
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A readymade porcelain urinal signed R. Mutt, submitted to the Society of Independent Artists' 1917 exhibition and never displayed there. The original was lost shortly afterward and is known today only through Alfred Stieglitz's photograph; Duchamp authorized replicas beginning in 1950, with documented versions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (a 1950 replica) and Tate (one of eight 1964 replicas). No original survives.
Facts
Year Created MediumReadymade porcelain urinal 1 LocationNo original survives; a 1950 authorized replica is held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and a 1964 replica at Tate, London. 2 Cross-Tradition Connections
Created By
In Form
Sculpture, Art Forms Museums generally class Fountain as a readymade rather than label it plainly a sculpture; the atlas's own Sculpture description already accounts for this twentieth century expansion of the medium through assemblage and found objects.
Sources
Dissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
Created By: Marcel Duchamp
A documented minority position in art-historical scholarship holds that Fountain was created, or co-created, by the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, a fellow Dada-associated artist and Duchamp's contemporary in New York, rather than by Marcel Duchamp alone; the position rests on a 1917 letter from Duchamp to his sister describing a female friend sending the urinal under a male pseudonym, and on stylistic comparisons to the Baroness's other readymade-style works. The mainstream attribution to Duchamp remains the position institutions holding related works (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Tate) publish.
A dissenting reading, from Revisionist art historians (notably Irene Gammel's scholarship on the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven)Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation
Frequently Asked Questions
Did Marcel Duchamp really make Fountain?
Mainstream attribution says yes; a documented scholarly dissent proposes the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven instead.
The mainstream attribution credits Marcel Duchamp, but a documented minority position in art-historical scholarship holds that the piece was created, or co-created, by the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. The atlas records this as a formal dissent against the created-by edge rather than settling the question.
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