Marcel Duchamp, 1917, Fountain, photograph by Alfred StieglitzMarcel Duchamp, who fled France for New York during the First World War, anonymously submitted an upside down porcelain urinal signed R. Mutt to the Society of Independent Artists for its first annual exhibition in 1917. Duchamp was, in fact, a board member of the Society, and had said he was working on a piece for the exhibition titled Tulip Hysteria Co-ordinating, which incidentally also dovetails rather sarcastically with the su...

Marcel Duchamp, 1917, Fountain, photograph by Alfred StieglitzMarcel Duchamp, who fled France for New York during the First World War, anonymously submitted an upside down porcelain urinal signed R. Mutt to the Society of Independent Artists for its first annual exhibition in 1917. Duchamp was, in fact, a board member of the Society, and had said he was working on a piece for the exhibition titled Tulip Hysteria Co-ordinating, which incidentally also dovetails rather sarcastically with the su...