Kurt Schwitters

One of the most radical and important artistic pioneers of the 20th century, Kurt Schwitters was a leader of the Dada movement, known for his lifelong dedication to his unique and revolutionary ‘Merz’ aesthetic style. Schwitters was born in Hanover, Germany in 1887. Trained at the Dresden Academy alongside Otto Dix and George Grosz, Schwitters began his artistic career as a post-Impressionist. Over the course of World War I, his artistic sense developed a distinctive Expressionist tone as he began to explore the avant-garde.

As war ended, Dada spread to a host of other European cities — Hanover, Berlin, Cologne and Paris, most notably. In Hanover, Kurt Schwitters created assemblages from scraps of fabric, string, cigarette packs, bus tickets and other detritus. Breaking down the boundaries between art and daily life and instigating an entire culture of materials which continues to inform much contemporary art today, Schwitters’ large-scale ‘Merzbild’ relief paintings, made between 191 and 1921, were immediately recognised at the time as something absolutely new — as creations expressive of a radical new concept of both what a work of art could be and how it could be made.

Schwitters created the first iteration of his most famous piece, Merzbau (Merz building), in his house in Hanover. It was a three-dimensional installation that was intended to be a living, evolving piece. Combining elements of sculpture, architecture and collage, the work filled entire rooms with intricate constructions made from found materials.

Having had his work labelled as ‘degenerate’ by the Nazis, the artist fled Germany in 1937 and settled in Norway, where he created his second Merzbau. In 1940 he moved to England and began working on his third Merbau iteration at Ambleside in the Lake District. However, the original Merzbau was destroyed in World War II, the second by fire in 1951 and the third was left unfinished at his death in 1948 — rending the Merzbau one of the most mysterious legends in modern art, inspiring a generation of installation artists.

Kurt Schwitters was a major influence on artists such as Alberto Burri, Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg, Joseph Beuys and Sigmar Polke. Today, Schwitters’ works can be found in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Tate in London, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid and more. In 2014 Christie’s sold Schwitters’ Ja – Was? – Bild (1920) for £13,970,500, setting a world auction record for the artist.