You must have heard of it: Fountain, the porcelain urinal that was presented as an objet trouvé during an exhibition in New York in 1917. The work bears a signature of one R. Mutt, but it was soon speculated that the work of the French artist Marcel Duchamp would be. Only towards the end of his life did the Dadaist claim the work, which is now regarded as one of the most influential works of art of the twentieth century.
But as it turns out: the work was not made by Duchamp at all. A letter from Duchamp from 1917 was found as early as 1982, in which he wrote that one of his female friends had submitted a 'porcelain pissoir as a sculpture' under the male pseudonym Richard Mutt. It appears that fellow Dadaist Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven submitted the work. Four scientists substantiate this theory in an article in the magazine See All This that appeared last Friday.
Well, you're probably wondering why something hasn't been announced about this before, if that letter has been known for more than 35 years? The researchers argue that the myth surrounding Duchamp and the vested interests in the art world surrounding it are too great to admit that a woman is the creator of this influential work of art. The question posed by the feminist art movement Guerrilla Girls can therefore be expanded even further: do women have to be naked to get into art history?