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While working on the “The Bride Stripped Bare . . . ,”

Duchamp also experimented with a new genre of

artwork he called the “readymade.” A readymade was an

ordinary mass-produced functional object, or a combina-

tion of such objects, bought from a store and minimally

modified. Sometimes Duchamp added nothing more

than a signature, a date, and a title. His first readymade

was actually created in Paris before he came to Ameri-

ca. It was a bicycle wheel mounted atop a wooden stool.

His first New York readymade was a snow shovel. He

suspended it from the ceiling of an art gallery and titled

it “In Advance of the Broken Arm.”

Two years later Duchamp fashioned what was to

become his most famous, or infamous, readymade.

It was an ordinary white porcelain urinal purchased at

a heating and plumbing supply showroom. Duchamp

added a date and signed it using the pseudonym

“R. Mutt.” (This was probably a play on the name of the

business where it was acquired, J. L. Mott Iron Works.)

He titled it “Fountain.”