In New York City, Freytag-Loringhoven supported herself by working in a cigarette factory and by posing as a model for artists such as
Louis Bouché,
George Biddle, and
Theresa Bernstein. She appeared in photographs by
Man Ray,
George Grantham Bain and others.
Poetry (i.e. McKay) and Baroness von Freytag-Loringhoven Freytag-Loringhoven was given a platform for her poetry in
The Little Review, where, starting in 1918, her work was featured alongside chapters of
James Joyce's
Ulysses.
Jane Heap considered Freytag-Loringhoven "the first American dada." She was an early female pioneer of
sound poetry, but also made creative use of the
dash, while many of her
portmanteau compositions, such as "Kissambushed" and "Phalluspistol," present miniature poems. Most of her poems remained unpublished until the publications of
Body Sweats. Her personal papers were preserved after her death by her editor, literary agent, artistic collaborator, and lover
Djuna Barnes. The
University of Maryland Libraries acquired a collection of her work with the papers of Barnes in 1973 and subsequently separated von Freytag-Lorninghoven's papers and treated them as an individual collection. The collection contains correspondence, visual poems, and other artistic/literary works by the artist. The University of Maryland's special collections has an extensive digital archive of her manuscripts. Scholar Eliza Jane Reilly argues that Freytag-Loringhoven's elaborate costumes both critiqued and challenged the bourgeois notions of feminine beauty and economic worth. In a performance of these ideals sometime between 1915-1916 in
New York City, von Freytag-Loringhoven took a gifted newspaper clipping of
Marcel Duchamp's
Nude Descending a Staircase to rub over her own nude body while reciting a love poem as an ode to the artist of the original painting. This performance was not only a public proclamation of her romantic feelings for Duchamp at that time, but transformative due to this act turning the working
artist-model into an artist in her own right. is another example of her
assemblages. The sculpture
God (1917) had for a number of years been solely attributed to the artist
Morton Livingston Schamberg. The
Philadelphia Museum of Art, which collection includes
God, now credits Freytag-Loringhoven as a co-author of this piece. Although Amelia Jones suggested that this artwork's concept and title was created by the baroness, it was likely constructed by both Schamberg and Freytag-Loringhoven. Her concept behind the shape and choice of materials is indicative of her commentary on the worship and love that Americans have for plumbing that trumps all else; additionally, it is revealing of Freytag-Loringhoven's rejection of technology. This has been claimed to be supported by a "great deal of circumstantial evidence." The speculation is largely based on a letter written by Marcel Duchamp to his sister
Suzanne (dated April 11, 1917) where he refers to the famous
ready-made: "One of my female friends under a masculine pseudonym, Richard Mutt, sent in a porcelain urinal as a sculpture." Literary historian
Irene Gammel suggested in 2002 that the "female friend" in question was Freytag-Loringhoven. Duchamp never identified his female friend, but three candidates have been proposed: an early appearance of Duchamp's female alter ego
Rrose Sélavy, Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, or
Louise Norton (a close friend of Duchamp, who contributed an essay to
The Blind Man defending
Fountain, and whose address is discernible on the paper entry ticket in the Stieglitz photograph). "It is important to note, however, that Duchamp wrote 'sent' not 'made', and his words do not indicate that he was implying that someone else was the work's creator." The piece is a ready-made apart from the signature. ==Death==