This week marks the 100 year anniversary of Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain,” a urinal that Duchamp famously upturned and inscribed with the signature “R.Mutt” and submitted for an exhibition with the Society of Independent Artists, only to get rejected. We look back at this controversial artwork through the words of artist Beatrice Wood, who maintained a lifelong friendship with Duchamp.

In the May 1917 issue of The Blind Man, a magazine edited by Pierre Roché, Wood and Duchamp, Wood authored an essay titled “The Richard Mutt Case,” in which she denounced the rejection of R. Mutt’s “Fountain” by the Society of Independent Artists. The accompanying image of the work was taken by Alfred Stieglitz. 

“They say an artist paying six dollars may exhibit. Mr. Richard Mutt sent in a fountain. Without discussion this article disappeared and never was exhibited. 

What were the grounds for refusing Mr. Mutt’s fountain: –

1. Some contended it was immoral, vulgar.

2. Others, it was plagiarism, a plain piece of plumbing.

Now Mr. Mutt’s fountain is not immoral, that is absurd, no more than a bath tub is immoral. It is a fixture that you see every day in plumbers’ show windows.

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.

As for plumbing, that is absurd. The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges” 

This original magazine, along with nearly 100 objects and artworks related to Duchamp, were included in our 2016 exhibition “A Marcel Duchamp Collection.” Visit our website for more images and information on the works.