Background
Kurt Schwitters was born on June 20, 1887 in Hanover, Germany. He was the only child of Eduard Schwitters, a shop owner, and Henriette (Beckemeyer) Schwitters.
Brühlsche Terrasse 1, 01067 Dresden, Germany
During the period from 1909 till 1915, Kurt studied at Dresden Academy of Fine Arts.
Brühlsche Terrasse 1, 01067 Dresden, Germany
During the period from 1909 till 1915, Kurt studied at Dresden Academy of Fine Arts.
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1932
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1919
painter typographer graphic designer collagist poet
Kurt Schwitters was born on June 20, 1887 in Hanover, Germany. He was the only child of Eduard Schwitters, a shop owner, and Henriette (Beckemeyer) Schwitters.
Initially, Kurt attended the School of Arts and Crafts in Hannover. Later in his lifetime, during the period from 1909 till 1915, he studied at Dresden Academy of Fine Arts, distinguishing himself by his skill in rendering.
In 1911, Kurt held his first exhibition, during which his work showed strong Post-Impressionist tendencies. However, as World War I engulfed Europe, his work shifted dramatically, incorporating a darker Expressionist style, as well as elements of Dada. Also, at that time, the artist began showing works at Der Sturm, a famed Berlin gallery, and contributed to their eponymous magazine.
Initially, Schwitters was exempt from military service during World War I due to his epilepsy, but when conscription was extended to a wider portion of the population, he was enlisted. The artist spent the last year and a half of the war, working as a technical draftsman in a factory not far from Hanover, an experience he later claimed responsible for his fascination with the idea of machines as metaphors for human activity. Also, it was in Hanover, that the artist began experimenting with the production of abstract pictures.
In 1918, Kurt created his first "Merz" picture. He had his first exhibition of these new works in 1919 at the famous Der Sturm Gallery in Berlin, directed by Herwarth Walden, who was also the editor of the Sturm journal. The same year, in 1919, Schwitters also published several articles and poems in the Sturm journal, including his famous "Anna Blume" poem, and established friendships with several avant-garde artists in Germany. In 1920, the Société Anonyme of Katharine Dreyer in New York showed some of Schwitters' works for the first time in the United States.
In 1922, at the Dada congress in Weimar, Kurt met the Dutch artist Theo van Doesburg and thus established connections with the De Stijl movement. Kurt's relationship with the Dutch van Doesburg was especially close and the two frequently visited one another's family homes. In 1923, he began to publish the Merz magazine, a position he held till 1932, and saw the first of his works bought by a museum of Dresden. Also, it was at that time, that the artist transformed parts of his home into a network of interconnected grottos and secret compartments, filled with clothing, human hair and other collected objects. He called this "Merzbau", an installation, reminiscent of his Merz collages. During this period, Schwitters also founded and directed a successful advertising and design agency.
In the late 1930's, Kurt also worked as a commercial artist, graphic designer and typographer for local businesses, collaborating with his friend, Kate Steinetz. Together they created children's stories, notable for their bold, linear design and typography. All of his design work, whether commercial, for the Merz magazine or private, is characterized by Constructivist and De Stijl ideas of balance, order and line. This graphic aesthetic gradually replaced the Dada one, by which his earlier works were noted.
In 1929, Schwitters was included in the exhibition "Abstrakte und surrealistische Malerei und Plastik" at Kunsthaus Zurich. The following year, he contributed to the Parisian journal "Cercle et Carré". In 1932, the artist joined the Paris-based Abstraction-Creation group, occasionally publishing in their eponymous journal. In 1936, his work was featured in two seminal exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, "Cubism and Abstract Art" and "Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism".
Despite these promising developments, the turbulent political environment negatively affected his career. His shocking aesthetic did not fare well in Germany and in 1937 the Nazi regime banned his work as "degenerate". In response, Schwitters left for Norway. There, he built the second "Merzbau", that was soon destroyed by a fire.
In 1940, when the Nazis invaded Norway, Kurt left for England, where he would remain for the rest of his life. Kurt was interned on the Isle of Man with many other German intellectuals and artists, but he continued to perform and create art with the limited supplies available. Following his internment, Schwitters lived in London for a brief period, and eventually settled in the Lake District in the northwest of England.
In order to support himself late in his life, Kurt painted realist landscapes and portraits, continuing to produce collages. In 1947, he received funding from the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and began work on the third "Merzbau", an installation in an old barn, that was left unfinished upon his death.
Kurt Schwitters became famous for his Merz and Merzbau works. Also, he was known as a prolific collagist, poet, typographer and advertising designer.
Kurt's most famous works include "The And-Picture", "Merz 11: Typoreklame", "Revolving" and others. His work, "Ja-Was?-Bild", was sold for £13.9 million at Christie's London in 2014.
Today, the artist's works are held in the collections of different museums and galleries, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Tate Gallery in London, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and others.
The Holy Night by Antoni Allegri, known as Correggio
Hitler Gang
Oorlog
Mz 231. Miss Blanche
Elikan
Forms in Space
The And-Picture
Mai 191
Man soll nicht asen mit Phrasen
Something or other
Aphorism
Difficult
For Kate
Cherry Picture
Pino Antoni
Santa Claus
Merz Picture 25A: The Star Picture
Untitled (D’Cily)
Picture with Light Center
Quotations:
"Art is a primordial concept, exalted as the godhead, inexplicable as life, indefinable and without purpose."
"In the war [at the machine factory at Wulfen] I discovered my love for the wheel and recognized that machines are abstractions of the human spirit."
"Merz stands for freedom from all fetters, for the sake of artistic creation. Freedom is not lack of restraint, but the product of strict artistic discipline."
"The artist creates by choosing, distributing, and reshaping the materials."
"I felt myself freed and had to shout my jubilation out to the world. Out of parsimony I took whatever I found to do this because we were now an impoverished country. One can even shout with refuse, and this is what I did, nailing and gluing it together. I called it 'Merz': it was a prayer about the victorious end of the war...everything had broken down...and new things had to be made out of the fragments: and this is Merz."
"I could see no reason why used tram tickets, bits of driftwood, buttons and old junk from attics and rubbish heaps should not serve well as materials for paintings; they suited the purpose just as well as factory-made paints... It is possible to cry out using bits of old rubbish, and that's what I did, gluing and nailing them together."
"The picture is a self-sufficient work of art. It is not connected to anything outside."
Schwitters was an idiosyncratic character, who often rode his bicycle through the streets of Hanover, loaded down with scrap paper and materials he would later make into art.
Kurt Schwitters married his cousin Helma Fischer on October 5, 1915. Their marriage produced two sons — Gerd, who died shortly after birth, and Ernst.
