Kurt Schwitters
Kurt Schwitters, born on June 20, 1887, in Hannover, Germany, was a significant figure in the Dada movement, which emerged in response to the devastation of World War I. Initially an expressionist painter, Schwitters underwent a profound transformation in his artistic outlook following the war. He is best known for his innovative artistic style called "merz," a form that integrates various media, including collages, assemblages, poetry, and performances, often utilizing found objects to challenge traditional notions of art. Although Schwitters was not an official member of the Dada group, his work was closely associated with its ideals, which rejected aestheticism in favor of confronting cultural norms and societal structures.
Throughout his career, Schwitters produced notable works such as the Merzbau, a dynamic sculpture within his studio that he continually altered. His creativity persisted even after fleeing Nazi Germany in 1937 due to his designation as a "degenerate" artist; he subsequently relocated to Norway and then England, where he faced hardships, including detention as an enemy alien. Schwitters continued to influence modern art until his death in 1948, leaving a legacy that questioned the role of the artist and the very definition of art itself. His contributions have been recognized for their impact on the evolution of contemporary artistic expression.
Kurt Schwitters
Artist
- Born: June 20, 1887
- Place of Birth: Place of birth: Hannover, Germany
- Died: January 8, 1948
- Place of Death: Place of death: Kendal, England
Education: School of Arts and Crafts, Hannover, Germany
Significance: Kurt Schwitters was an artist related to the Dada movement, which was an important cultural force in Europe and beyond after World War I. Shwitters created poetry, sculpture, drawings, assemblages, and collages.
Background
Kurt Schwitters, who was born Herman Edward Karl Julius Schwitters, was born on June 20, 1887, in Hannover, Germany. As a boy, Schwitters attended the School of Arts and Crafts in Hanover and became an expressionist painter. He served as a draftsman in the military in 1917. After World War I, Schwitters’s ideas about art and life had completely changed. In response to the violence of the war, he began creating art that was significantly different from what he had done before. He used many different art forms and materials in his work.
Life’s Work
Schwitters is often associated with the Dada art movement that evolved in response to World War I and the apparent nationalism that helped cause the war. Dada artists were not interested in creating art for aesthetic pleasure; they wanted instead to create art that challenged cultural norms and the bourgeois. Because of this, Dada was the first art movement of its kind. Dada originated in Zurich, Switzerland, and then spread to Hannover, Paris, and New York. Dada was greatly influenced by other avant-garde art movements such as Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism, and Expressionism. Many Dada artists, including Schwitters, used some ready-made objects, or objects from everyday life, in their art.
Although Schwitters was involved in the Dada movement, he was not an official member of the group. It is unclear exactly why Schwitters was not formally welcomed into the Dada group because members of the group included his work with theirs. Today’s scholars also consider him part of the Dada movement.
Schwitters is best known for a type of Dada art he called merz. His merz work included many different types of art (e.g., collages, assemblage, poems, performances), but his most famous merz works were his collages. Schwitters was well known for including found objects—such as rocks, string, and used pieces of paper—in his merz. He used this trash to create art in part to call into question the nature of art and the role of the artist.
Schwitters explained that the way in which he created merz was influenced by what he had experienced during World War I. When most of the world was in turmoil, artists such as Schwitters reacted to the chaos through their art. He named his art style merz to differentiate it from Dada and other art styles.
Schwitters published Anna Blume, which was a poem, in 1919, and Merz magazine from 1923 to 1932. He had his first individual show in Galerie Der Sturm in Berlin in 1920. By this time, he had already started making his collages, for which he would become best known. From 1923 to 1937, he worked on a sculpture that would be called Merzbau. The statue was actually the studio where he worked, to which he added columns, debris, and other elements. Merzbau was a "living" statue, and Schwitters was constantly changing it. Today, the Sprengel Museum in Hamburg has notes from Schwitters’s friends and acquaintances detailing the changing nature of Merzbau, and the museum has reconstructed what it might have looked like. The original structure was destroyed during World War II.
By the early 1930s, Schwitters was well known in Germany. Then, the Nazis came to power and wanted to eliminate what they called entartete Kunst (degenerate art). In 1937, Schwitters fled Germany because the Nazi government had labeled him a "degenerate," and he had learned that the Gestapo wanted to see him. He traveled to Norway after leaving Germany but had to travel to England when Germany invaded Norway. While in England, Schwitters continued to produce art. However, he was detained for a year by authorities because he was considered an enemy alien. He was poor and ill for much of the time he was in England. Schwitters died there in 1948, a few years after World War II ended.
Impact
Schwitters was a prolific artist and composed works in many different media, including collage, sculpture, painting, and drawing. He also expressed his artistic ideas through speaking, performance, poetry, and architecture. He and the rest of the Dada movement made an important impact on modern art by calling into question the nature of art.
Personal Life
Schwitters married Helen Fischer in 1915. Their first son, Gerd, was born and died in 1916. Their second son, Ernst, was born in 1918. Helen died of cancer in 1944. Ernst was by his father’s side when he passed away in a hospital in England in 1948.
Bibliography
Bader, Graham. Poisoned Abstraction: Kurt Schwitters Between Revolution and Exile. Yale UP, 2021.
Cooke, Rachel. "Kurt Schwitters: The Modernist Master in Exile." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited, 5 Jan. 2013. Web. 1 June 2016.
"Dada." The Art Story Foundation. The Art Story Foundation, n.d. Web. 1 June 2016.
Galenson, David. "Kurt Schwitters’ Art of Redemption." Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc., 17 April 2013. Web. 1 June 2016.
"Important Art and Artists of Dada." The Art Story Foundation. The Art Story Foundation, n.d. Web. 1 June 2016.
"Kurt Schwitters." Guggenheim. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, n.d. Web. 1 June 2016.
"Kurt Schwitters 1887 – 1948." Tate. Tate Gallery, n.d. Web. 1 June 2016.
"The Kurt Schwitters Archive and Catalogue Raisonné." Sprengel Museum Hannover. Sprengel Museum Hannover, n.d. Web. 1 June 2016.