It would be a cruel irony if Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven was, in the end, remembered only for the false claim that she was responsible for the most famous work of conceptual art of the 20th century: Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (‘Sleep with everyone! Be embarrassing!’ – the dada baroness who shocked society, 31 May).
Originating in a campaign to discredit Duchamp and modern art as a whole, which hitched itself to the campaign to rehabilitate a forgotten woman artist and poet, the claim has been totally discredited – see atlaspress.co.uk/marcel-duchamp-was-not-a-thief
There are good reasons to admire the baroness, as a poet, performance artist and object-maker, as the current exhibition at Mimosa House in London reveals, but the idea that she was in any way responsible for Fountain is a joke – of which I hope she will not end up the butt.
Dawn Adès
Professor emerita of art history and theory, University of Essex