Kurt Schwitters
German artist known for Merz collages
Genja Jonas · via Wikipedia: Kurt Schwitters · Public domain
Kurt Schwitters was born on 20 June 1887 in Hanover, the only child of shop owners Eduard and Henriette Schwitters.[1] He invented the term "Merz" for his art during the winter of 1918-19.[1]
Quick Facts
- Birth name
- Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters
- Born
- 20 June 1887
- Birthplace
- Hanover, German Empire
- Died
- 8 January 1948
- Place of death
- Kendal, England
- Field
- Dancing
- collage
- artist's book
- installation
- sculpture
- poetry
- Training
- Dresden Academy
- Movement
- Merz
Facts from the source article.
Life and work
Schwitters studied art at the Dresden Academy from 1909 to 1915 alongside Otto Dix and George Grosz.[2] He served auxiliary military service as a mechanical draughtsman at Wülfel ironworks from June 1917 to November 1918.[1] He met Hans Arp, Raoul Hausmann and Hannah Höch in Berlin in autumn 1918.[1] Schwitters composed and performed the sound poem Ursonate from 1922 to 1932.[3]
He fled to Norway on 2 January 1937 after his son Ernst had left Germany on 26 December 1936.[4] During his auxiliary military service as a mechanical draughtsman at the Wülfel ironworks from June 1917 to November 1918, Schwitters stated that he discovered his love for the wheel and realized machines are abstractions of the human spirit.[5][1] In June 1918, Schwitters's work was included for the first time in an exhibition at Herwarth Walden's Sturm gallery in Berlin.[1] Raoul Hausmann's memoirs recount that Schwitters sought membership in Berlin Dada during late 1918 or early 1919.[6]
From 1923 until 1932, Schwitters issued the periodical Merz, with each edition organized around a single topic.[7]
What the cited sources add
The same source notes that he took annual summer trips to Norway from 1930 to 1936.[4] A 2013 article in The Independent states that only 28 people attended one of his recitals.[8] Freddy Godshaw's recollections on the BBC state that Schwitters was the main star in Hutchinson Camp.[9] Adrian Glew's obituary of Klaus Hinrichsen notes that Schwitters made sculptures out of porridge and had a penchant for sleeping under his bed.[10]
References
- Schröder, "Kurt & Ernst Schwitters Archive", Schwitters-stiftung.de. facts only, no text reused. schwitters-stiftung.de
- Wikipedia, "Kurt Schwitters" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Dada, Leah Dickerman, National Gallery of Art, Washington. p. 158. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Kurt Schwitters" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "UbuWeb; Sound", Ubu.com, 5 May 1932 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Schröder, "Kurt & Ernst Schwitters Archive", Schwitters-stiftung.de. facts only, no text reused. schwitters-stiftung.de
- Wikipedia, "Kurt Schwitters" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Quoted in The Collages of Kurt Schwitters, Dietrich, Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 86. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Kurt Schwitters" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Raoul Hausmann, Am Anfang war Dada, 3rd edition, ed. Karl Riha and Günter Kämpf (Giessen, 1992), p. 63.; note 23.; quoted in The Grove Dictionary of Art, Oxford University Press, 1996, Essay on Kurt Schwittters by Richard Humphreys.; "The Collection | Kurt Schwitters. (German, 1887–1948)", MoMA (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Kurt Schwitters" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: For a more detailed overview of the Merz journals, see Roger Cardinal and Gwendolen Webster, Kurt Schwitters, Hatje Cantz, 2011, pp. 132–135. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Quoted in "Pop Art pioneer is back in the picture" , by Arifa Akbar in The Independent, 27 January 2013.. facts only, no text reused. independent.co.uk
- Freddy Godshaw recollections of Hutchinson Camp on the BBC.. facts only, no text reused. bbc.co.uk
- Adrian Glew, Obituary of Klaus Hinrichsen , The Guardian, 28 September 2004.. facts only, no text reused. theguardian.com
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Kurt Schwitters (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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