Interpretation

The title of the work

The use of the word "Dada" for the art movement, the meaning and intention of both the piece and the signature "R. Mutt", are difficult to understand. It is not clear whether Duchamp had in mind the German "Armut" (meaning "poverty"). Later in his life Duchamp commented on the name of the alter ego he created for this work: 'Mutt' comes from Mott Works, the name of a large sanitary equipment manufacturer. But Mott was too close so he altered it to Mutt, after the daily cartoon strip Mutt and Jeff then just R. MUTT. If  you separate the capital and lowercase letters you get "R.M" and "utt", "R.M" would stand for "Readymade" which is the fountain itself and "utt" when read out loud sounds like "eut été" in French. Together it means "Readymade once was, 1917". Word games like this are common in Marcel Duchamp's work. 

In December 2004, Duchamp's Fountain was voted the most influential artwork of the 20th century by 500 selected British art world professionals and in a February 2008 article Duchamp was said to of invented conceptual art.