Kurt Schwitters
Kurt Schwitters (
June 20,
1887 -
January 8,
1948) was a German
painter who was born in
Hannover,
Germany.
Schwitters worked in several genres and mediums, including
Dada,
Constructivism,
Surrealism,
poetry,
sound,
painting,
collage,
sculpture,
typography and what came to be known as
installations.
Though not a direct participant in
Dada activities, he employed Dada ideas in his work, such as his
Merz works — art pieces built up of found objects; some were very small, some took the form of large constructions, or what would later in the
20th century be called
installations. The
Sprengel Museum in
Hanover has a reconstruction of the best known of these installations, called
Merzbau, which was a redesign of at least four rooms in Schwitters's house in Hanover. (These were not in his apartment, but on the ground floor, in the attic and possibly in the basement.) The original
Merzbau was destroyed in an air raid during
World War II. According to Schwitters,
merz is derived from the name of the Commerzbank; the word is also notably similar to the French word
merde.
A story is told, but untrue, that he attempted to join the network of Dada artists, only to be rejected by the leader of the Berlin movement,
Richard Huelsenbeck, on the premise that Schwitters was
too bourgeois for Dada. A 2005 exposition on Dada at the
Centre Georges Pompidou further acknowledged Schwitters as a member of the larger movement by devoting an entire section to the exhibition of some of his work (Ramade 2005).
Thanks to Schwitters' lifelong patron and friend
Katherine Dreier, his work was exhibited regularly in the USA from 1920 onwards. Schwitters published his own Merz magazine from 1923-32 and in the late 1920s became a well-known typographer; his best-known work was the catalogue for the Dammerstocksiedlung in
Karlsruhe. From 1924 he ran an advertising agency called Merzwerbe, and in the late 1920s was the official typographer of Hannover town council. He became a member of the
Deutscher Werkbund (German Work Federation) in the late 1920s.
In January 1937 Schwitters fled to Norway, and in the same year, his Merz pictures were included in the Nazi exhibition of
degenerate art (entartete Kunst) in Munich. Schwitters started a second Merzbau while in exile in
Oslo,
Norway in 1937 but abandoned it in 1940 when the
Nazis invaded; this Merzbau was subsequently destroyed in a fire in 1951. His hut on the Norwegian island of Hjertoya, near
Molde, is also frequently regarded as a Merzbau.
Schwitters fled to
England, and was initially interned in Douglas Camp,
Isle of Man. He spent time in
London, then in 1945 moved to the
Lake District, where, in 1947, he began work on the last Merzbau, which he called the
Merzbarn. One wall of this last structure is now in the Hatton Gallery in
Newcastle; the shell of the barn remains in Elterwater, near
Ambleside.
He composed and performed an early example of
sound poetry,
Ursonate (1922-32; the transliteration of the title is
Primordial Sonata). Schwitters also authored the poem
An Anna Blume.
The sound recordings made by Schwitters in 1932 of both
Ursonate and
An Anna Blume can be heard on the audio CD
Voices of Dada.
Schwitters died in
Kendal, England, and was buried in
Ambleside. His grave was unmarked until 1966 when a stone was erected with the inscription
Kurt Schwitters â€" Creator of Merz. The stone remains as a memorial even though his body was later disinterred and reburied in
Hannover,
Germany, the grave being marked with a marble copy of his 1929 sculpture
Die Herbstzeitlose.
Schwitters' son, Ernst, largely entrusted the artistic estate of his father to Gilbert Lloyd, director of the Marlborough Gallery in
Oslo, Norway. However, Ernst fell victim to a crippling stroke in 1995, moving control of the estate as a whole to Kurt's grandson, Bengt Schwitters. Controversy erupted when Bengt, who has said he has "no interest in art and his grandfather's works," terminated the standing agreement between the family and the Marlborough Gallery. The Marlborough Gallery filed suit against the Schwitters estate in 1996, after confirming Ernst Schwitters' desire to have Mr. Lloyd continue to administer the estate in his will.
Professor Henrick Hanstein, an auctioneer and art expert, provided key testimony in the case, stating that Schwitters was virtually forgotten after his death in exile in England in 1948, and that the Marlborough Gallery had been vital in ensuring the artist's place in art history. The verdict, which was eventually upheld by Norway's highest court, awarded the gallery USD 2.6 million in damages.
[Alexander, Leslie. "Marlborough Vindicated". Art & Antiques April 2001: 38.]Schwitters' visual work has now been completely catalogued in the Catalogue Raisonne. Forgeries of collages by Schwitters turn up almost weekly on Ebay; before purchasing any supposed work by Schwitters, it is best to consult the Kurt Schwitters Archive at the Sprengel Museum in Hannover.
*
Brian Eno sampled Schwitters recording of
Ursonate for the "Kurt's Rejoinder" track on his 1977 album,
Before and after Science.
*Japanese musician
Merzbow took his name from Schwitters.
*Canadian poet
Colin Morton wrote a book of poetry inspired by Schwitters and a play based on it.
*A fictionalised account of Schwitters's time in London is the subject of an
opera by
Michael Nyman,
Man and Boy: Dada.
*Canadian composer Christopher Butterfield has performed
Ursonate multiple times. He recorded the work at the
National Research Council of Canada in 1979.
*The German hip-hop band
Freundeskreis quoted from his poem "An Anna Blume" in their hit single "ANNA".
*The British indie rock band
British Sea Power play parts of
Ursonate between songs while playing live.
*
Sprengel Museum Hannover*
Kurt Schwitters Archive, Sprengel Museum, Hannover (with bibliography, detailed biography, list of exhibitions and contact address for enquiries)
*
Kurt Schwitters Archive, Stadtbibliothek, Hannover*
Biography at Artchive*
Short biography Guggenheim Museum*
Artcyclopedia entry*
Cut & Paste: A History of Photomontage*
Armitt Library*
Merzbau 3D*
Schwitters' Merzbarn*
Schwitters in the Lake District*
Scans of Schwitters' publication Merz*
Littoral Arts Projects*
Catalogue RaisonnéSound art
*
UbuWeb: Cut and Paste: Collage and the art of Sound by Kevin Concannon
*
UbuWeb Sound Poetry: Kurt Schwitters*
Voices of Dada CD: Kurt SchwittersWebster, Gwendolen,
Kurt Merz Schwitters, a Biographical Study, University of Wales Press 1997, ISBN 0-7083-1438-4Ramade, Bénédicte. (2005)
Dada: L'exposition/The Exhibition, Union-Distribution. ISBN 2844262783
