page_title: Fountain (Duchamp)
section_title: Origin
hierarchical_section_title: Fountain (Duchamp) / Origin
caption_attribution_description: English: Eljer Co. Highest Quality Two-Fired Vitreous China Catalogue 1918 Bedfordshire No. 700.jpg
context_page_description: Fountain is a readymade sculpture by Marcel Duchamp in 1917, consisting of a porcelain urinal signed "R.Mutt". In April 1917, an ordinary piece of plumbing chosen by Duchamp was submitted for an exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists, the inaugural exhibition by the Society to be staged at The Grand Central Palace in New York. In Duchamp's presentation, the urinal's orientation was altered from its usual positioning. Fountain was not rejected by the committee, since Society rules stated that all works would be accepted from artists who paid the fee, but the work was never placed in the show area. Following that removal, Fountain was photographed at Alfred Stieglitz's studio, and the photo published in The Blind Man. The original has been lost.
  The work is regarded by art historians and theorists of the avant-garde as a major landmark in 20th-century art. Sixteen replicas were commissioned from Duchamp in the 1950s and 1960s and made to his approval.
context_section_description: Marcel Duchamp arrived in the United States less than two years prior to the creation of Fountain and had become involved with Francis Picabia, Man Ray, Beatrice Wood amongst others in the creation of an anti-rational, anti-art, proto-Dada cultural movement in New York City.
  In early 1917, rumors spread that Duchamp was working on a Cubist painting titled Tulip Hysteria Co-ordinating, in preparation for the largest exhibition of modern art ever to take place in the United States. When Tulip Hysteria Co-ordinating did not appear at the show, those who had expected to see it were disappointed. But the painting likely never existed.
  According to one version, the creation of Fountain began when, accompanied by artist Joseph Stella and art collector Walter Arensberg, Duchamp purchased a standard Bedfordshire model urinal from the J. L. Mott Iron Works, 118 Fifth Avenue. The artist brought the urinal to his studio at 33 West 67th Street, reoriented it 90 degrees from its originally intended position of use, and wrote on it, "R. Mutt 1917". Duchamp elaborated:
  
  Mutt comes from Mott Works, the name of a large sanitary equipment manufacturer. But Mott was too close so I altered it to Mutt, after the daily cartoon strip "Mutt and Jeff" which appeared at the time, and with which everyone was familiar. Thus, from the start, there was an interplay of Mutt: a fat little funny man, and Jeff: a tall thin man... I wanted any old name. And I added Richard [French slang for money-bags]. That's not a bad name for a pissotière. Get it? The opposite of poverty. But not even that much, just R. MUTT.
  At the time Duchamp was a board member of the Society of Independent Artists. After much debate by the board members (most of whom did not know Duchamp had submitted it) about whether the piece was or was not art, Fountain was hidden from view during the show. Duchamp resigned from the Board, and "withdrew" Tulip Hysteria Co-ordinating in protest. "Fountain", wrote the committee, "may be a very useful object in its place, but its place is not an art exhibition, and it is by no definition, a work of art." For this reason the work was "suppressed" (Duchamp's expression).
  No, not rejected. A work can’t be rejected by the Independents. It was simply suppressed. I was on the jury, but I wasn’t consulted, because the officials didn't know that it was I who had sent it in; I had written the name "Mutt" on it to avoid connection with the personal. The "Fountain" was simply placed behind a partition and, for the duration of the exhibition, I didn’t know where it was. I couldn't say that I had sent the thing, but I think the organizers knew it through gossip. No one dared mention it. I had a falling out with them, and retired from the organization. After the exhibition, we found the "Fountain" again, behind a partition, and I retrieved it! (Marcel Duchamp, 1971)
  The New York Dadaists stirred controversy about Fountain and its being rejected in the second issue of The Blind Man which included a photo of the piece and a letter by Alfred Stieglitz, and writings by Louise Norton, Beatrice Wood and Arensberg. An editorial, possibly written by Wood, accompanying the photograph, entitled "The Richard Mutt Case", made a claim that would prove to be important concerning certain works of art that would come after it:
  Whether Mr Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view – created a new thought for that object.
  In defense of the work being art, the piece continues, "The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges." Duchamp described his intent with the piece was to shift the focus of art from physical craft to intellectual interpretation.
  In a letter dated 23 April 1917, Stieglitz wrote of the photograph he took of Fountain: "The "Urinal" photograph is really quite a wonder—Everyone who has seen it thinks it beautiful—And it's true—it is. It has an oriental look about it—a cross b
caption: Eljer Co. Highest Quality Two-Fired Vitreous China Catalogue 1918 Bedfordshire No. 700
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