Did Marcel Duchamp Plagiarize His Most Famous Work?

In 1917, Marcel Duchamp presented an overturned urinal as a sculpture to the New York Society of Independent Artists. His work caused great outrage and opened a new chapter in the history of art. The readymade object, chosen but not created by the artist, became the first-ever work of Conceptual art. However, Duchamp’s notes hint at the questionable authorship of the piece. Some art historians believe the work was made by the eccentric German Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. Read on to learn more about the Fountain controversy.

In 1917, Marcel Duchamp, an artist of French origin working in the US at the time, submitted his new artwork for an exhibition organized by the Society of Independent Artists in New York. But, instead of a painting or a sculpture, Duchamp, who was among the Society’s board members, sent in an inverted urinal signed using someone else’s name. Board members were offended by the piece and refused to put it on display. Then, Duchamp revealed himself as the true artist behind the work and left the Society.

Duchamp’s Fountain questioned the centuries-old relationship between the artist and his work of art. Instead of physically fabricating his piece, showing his skill and mastery, Duchamp simply thought of it and made it real through the already existing means. To the vast majority, this seemed ridiculous and offensive. The object itself, with its crude and unsophisticated connotations, was seen as an insult to American art critics’ taste and preference.

Defenders of Duchamp, many of them his friends, described Fountain as a loving ode to modern America rather than an insult to public morals. A ceramist Beatrice Wood wrote that the only great works of art America had produced at the time were “her plumbing and her bridges.” However, despite the repeated mentions of Duchamp’s name in art reviews and think pieces, some art historians have their doubts about the real creator of Fountain.

Marcel Duchamp was affiliated with a wide array of art movements, ranging from Post-Impressionism to Dada. In fact, his practice proved how invalid the traditional classification of art and artists was. During his lifetime, Duchamp easily blended influences, ideas, and mediums, defying any attempt to ultimately categorize him. However, Duchamp’s involvement in the Dada movement was perhaps one of the most important points of his artistic career.

Dadaism was inspired by the traumatic events of World War I that forced European intellectuals to rethink the function and role of art in society. A global military conflict involving chemical weapons, heavy machinery, and aviation seemed to prove the inability of art to positively contribute to the world. Dadaists believed that since the old culture did not prevent humanity from self-destruction, it needed to be reinvented.

Dada art was hard to define in a single passage. It was absurd, self-contradicting, hysterical, deep, and superficial at the same time. Dada poets wrote nonsensical verses from random sounds and words taken from newspaper headlines. Dada was everything and nothing, a cry of pain and a cruel joke at the expense of the one who was crying.

Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven was one of the most eccentric characters of the Dada circle which was filled with bold personalities in the first place. In her everyday existence, Elsa went from more or less standard bohemian extravagance to full-blown never-ending performance art. Although her title and last name suggested privilege and wealth, this was hardly the case. Before moving to New York, Else Plotz was a vaudeville performer traveling from one European capital to another, with two marriages and hundreds of lovers of all genders. Baron Leopold von Freytag-Loringhoven, who was eleven years younger than her, was her third husband.

The marriage did not last long. The baron was broke and insecure and he went to fight in World War I to earn respect from his family. However, soon after going to war, he was taken prisoner. He committed suicide, leaving Elsa to fend for herself. Already in her forties, she worked at a cigarette factory and posed nude for artists to earn a living. She was open and unapologetic about her sexuality and ambiguous with her gender.

Elsa shaved her head only to cover it with vermillion lacquer. She wore teaspoons instead of earrings, post stamps instead of makeup, and picked up trash from the streets to turn it into garments. Adorned with broken heels and tomato cans, Baroness was a spectacle and a scandalous living work of art, although not one that was universally appreciated. A colleague from a cigarette factory once knocked out two of her side teeth, annoyed by her never-ending provocative behavior.

Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven was crucial for the development of the New York Dada branch, although her name gets mentioned significantly less than that of Marcel Duchamp. The Baroness wrote poetry that was often obscene. She also danced and constructed readymade sculptures. Her sexuality was the core of her artistic identity, and her body was her main artistic medium. Her metamorphoses, her performative promiscuity, and her deliberate mutilation of norms were both ridiculing and subverting the notions of traditional femininity, beauty, and acceptable behavior.

Baroness Elsa was the living embodiment of Dada, equally appealing and repulsive, crude and sophisticated. Her artistic effort, however, remains underappreciated. A very limited number of Elsa’s works have survived, and most of her impact was non-physical, centered around her physical presence. Some art historians believe that one of the most emblematic works of modern art was not created by Duchamp but by Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven.

The question of authorship was initially provoked by none other than Duchamp himself. In a letter to his sister, he mentioned that the urinal was sent to him by an unspecified female friend. The pseudonym of the artist written on the urinal, Richard Mutt, also referred to this friend’s nickname. Moreover, in his later statements, Duchamp mentioned that he bought the urinal from the company of J.L. Mott. However, according to catalogs, that company never produced this particular model.

Duchamp’s letters never uncovered the complete picture but offered enough hints to raise concerns. Several of his friends carefully mentioned the questionable originality of the piece. However, some details also play in favor of Duchamp’s authorship. Beatrice Wood, who insisted Duchamp was the only artist behind the piece. In this context, the female friend he mentioned could be seen as the one who sent the urinal to the Society, preventing the board members from identifying Duchamp immediately. The contact details that were found in a letter enclosed to the sculpture referred to Duchamp’s close friend, artist Louise Norton. Norton certainly knew much more about the work than the public did and published a defensive letter titled Buddha of the Bathroom.

The Baroness Theory: Could She Be the True Author?

Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven and Marcel Duchamp had a complicated yet fruitful creative union. The Baroness certainly wished to move their relationship into a more personal realm, yet Duchamp was only interested in her mind and her creative energy. They made films together, including erotic ones, and Elsa’s sexual frustration and Duchamp’s elusive flirtation were reflected in numerous works created by both artists. The Baroness had a rather crude sense of humor centered around bodily functions and fluids.

Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven’s work God was a readymade made out of an inverted plumbing trap with obvious phallic associations. The object seems similar to Fountain and it was created around the same time. Moreover, the title of the Baroness’ work makes even more sense given the fact that Fountain, photographed in the bright light of Alfred Stieglitz’s studio, was renamed Madonna by Duchamp’s inner circle. Elsa never admitted or disproved her possible authorship, instead leaving ambiguous remarks about her being the owner of Duchamp’s soul and another part of his psyche. Following her fallout with Duchamp in 1923, Elsa created one of her last pieces of art—a painting expressing her feelings of abandonment and sorrow. She painted an abandoned umbrella and an overflowing urinal spills its contents on the floor.

While the question of authorship remains unanswered, some people believe that Fountain should be perceived as a group effort, even without hard proof of someone else’s involvement. In closely knit artistic communities, collaborations, inspirations, and shared ideas often emerge organically, making it impossible to pinpoint a single mind that’s behind certain concepts. Modern and contemporary art, especially highly conceptual forms like Dada or its later iterations, question the origin of ideas in the same way they question the necessity of traditional materials and techniques. Thus, a linear and structured art history with labels and boxes of styles, names, and movements, proves itself incapable of grasping all possibilities of artistic expression.