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 Most exhibitions in: |
| Country |
№ |
| Germany | 57 |
| USA | 28 |
| Spain | 12 |
| United Kingdom | 7 |
| Most exhibitions held at: |
| Institution |
№ |
 |
Sprengel Museum Hannover, Germany |
7 |
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Fundación Juan March, Spain |
4 |
| |
Documenta, Germany |
4 |
| |
MoMA - Museum of Modern Art, USA |
4 |
| |
Galerie Gmurzynska - Köln, Germany |
4 |
Biography: 
20.6.1887 Born in Hannover, NI (DE)
Kurt Schwitters is generally acknowledged as the twentieth century's greatest master of collage. Just as collage is essentially the medium of irony, so Schwitters' life is characterized by paradox and enigma. Born in Hanover, the only child of affluent parents, he was a loner in his youth, plagued by epileptic attacks, introverted and insecure, and as a student at the Dresden Academy of Art he proved as apt as he was unimaginative. Although his contact with Expressionist artists in Hannover in 1916 gave him more confidence to develop his own style, even his most impressive works (such as Mountain Graveyard) were little more than imitations of his contemporaries.
A major challenge came in 1918 with the invitation to exhibit at Herwarth Walden's notorious Sturm gallery in Berlin, for Walden had contacts with most progressive European artists, including the Zurich Dada group. Schwitters found further stimulus in the activities of the revolutionary Berlin Dadaists. (The generally accepted story that Schwitters was rejected by Berlin Dada is, however, not true.) But it was Hans Arp, himself a pioneer of collage, who first persuaded Schwitters to abandon his sterile academic techniques. Schwitters' first known collage, Hansi, is strongly reminiscent of Arp's work, and soon afterwards he began making assemblages from scraps of refuse, including one he called the Merz picture. Subsequently he referred to all his work as Merz.
A Sturm exhibition of his new style in mid-1919, which showed his abstract Merz works and some whimsical 'Dada drawings' (such as The Heart goes from Sugar to Coffee) caused a furore among the critics, as did his 'Anna Blume' poem published in the same year. Schwitters thrived on public opposition, and from 1919 to 1923 he created a succession of Merz pictures which are now seen as his greatest contribution to twentieth century art. These pictures carry an inner tension that derives from the sensitive juxtaposition of abstraction and realism, aesthetics and rubbish, art and life, and their innate dynamism is one of the characteristics of Merz. Schwitters stands alone in the consummate mastery of colour, the delicate balance of content and form and the intricate interplay of coarse and filigree displayed in Merzbild Rossfett; the almost minimalist Revolving, using the barest of materials, conveys a mysterious shadowy rotating cosmos extending far beyond the bounds of the frame: in Construction for Noble Ladies, the precarious equilibrium of the disparate elements is stabilised only by the side-on portrait of Schwitters' angelic and long-suffering wife Helma.
Schwitters' revolution came late - he was 32 at the time of the first Merz exhibition - but Merz changed his life radically. He suddenly found himself at the forefront of contemporary art and quickly allied himself with the avant-garde, including various European Dada groups, the Bauhaus (Schlemmer, Klee, Kandinsky, Feininger, Gropius) and the new generation of Contructivists from Eastern Europe and the Netherlands (Lissitsky, Moholy-Nagy, Theo van Doesburg). By now his fantasy knew no bounds and over the next decade he undertook radical experiments in such fields as abstract drama and poetry, cabaret, typography, multimedia art, body painting, music, photography and architecture. He published a Merz magazine which appeared irregularly from 1923-32 and founded what was to become a successful advertising agency in 1924.
Schwitters was a master of subtle colour and precarious balance, and during the twenties the influence of Constructivism, with its clinical reliance on primary colour and clear geometrical forms, was not always advantageous to his work. Although a quasi-minimalist approach came naturally to him (he experimented with it early, in pictures like Coloured Squares), he introduced Constructivist ideas more rigorously into his work after 1924. The composition of the Merz pictures becomes more clear-cut, the textures more uniform, the individual elements larger and simpler. But luckily he never abandoned the principles of Merz, as can be seen from the splendid Relief with Cross and Sphere and Cicero, where the effects of stark Constructivist colours and tight composition are brilliantly offset by sharp curves and shadows and Schwitters' beloved scraps of battered Merz refuse. An equally startling example is Small Seaman's Home (made in Holland, where Schwitters would comb the beaches for Merz finds during his summer holidays).
For thirteen years (1923-36) he also worked on an extraordinary construction that came to be known as the Merzbau; it was what we would now call an Environment and eventually spread to eight rooms of his house in Hannover. Its original name was the 'Cathedral of Erotic Misery' and its contents were as shocking as anything produced by radical young artists today.
With the rise of National Socialism in Germany after 1929, Schwitters found himself in serious difficulties. As the artistic community emigrated or went into hiding, so Schwitters was robbed of much of the impetus that was crucial to his art. The death of his father and of Theo van Doesburg in 1931 mark the start of a new phase of his work, as Schwitters himself makes clear in 'New Merz Picture', with its contemplative mood and coarse dabs of colour. The sombre restraint of Pino Antoni is likewise in sharp contrast to the works of the exuberant early Merz period.
Schwitters kept a low profile during the Third Reich and emigrated to Norway in January 1937, for reasons that have never been satisfactorily explained. But the Gestapo were certainly on his trail, and in summer 1937 his pictures were displayed at the infamous 'Entartete Kunst' exhibition in Munich. Clearly his return to Germany was blocked for ever.
Depressed at abandoning the Hannover Merzbau to an uncertain fate, Schwitters completed a similar construction in Oslo, but in 1940 Nazi troops invaded Norway and he was forced to flee for his life. He finally landed in England, where he was interned until November 1941. Yet the Merz pictures of this turbulent period give little indication of the fact that Schwitters suffered from poor health and time and again found himself in life-threatening situations. Merzbild Alf is often cited as an example of his brief interest in Surrealism: it is difficult to imagine that Spring Door, the superb Glass Flower and Merzbild with Rainbow, with their sparks of light and swinging rhythms, were created at a time of increasing isolation and despair for the artist.
After release from internment, Schwitters lived until 1945 in bombed-out London, where the unfamiliar surroundings gave him fresh inspiration for Merz pictures. He made light of his heap of problems in Difficult, echoed the dismal fabric of wartime Britain and the blows of fate in the ironically-named Heavy Relief, reworked the great masters in inimitable tongue-in-cheek Merz fashion in Die heilige Nacht and recalled the dark days of the Nazi regime in the sinister black shapes and blood-red background of Hitler Gang (named after a film). He was fascinated by the comics sent in letters from compatriots in the USA and used them in his famous For Kate, a collage now regarded as a forerunner of Pop Art.
In 1945 he moved with his young companion, Edith Thomas, to Ambleside in the English Lake District, where, financed by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, he started on a new Merzbau that came to be known as the Merz barn. At his death he had completed only one wall, now to be found in Newcastle University. Sadly, no other of Schwitters extraordinary Merzbau constructions have survived. He died at the age of sixty, poverty-stricken and neglected, but in the knowledge that his work would one day be recognized as that of a genius. As he saw, the language of Merz now finds common acceptance and today there is scarcely an artist working with materials other than paint who does not refer to Schwitters in some way. In his bold and wide-ranging experiments he can be seen as the grandfather of Pop Art, Happenings, Concept Art, Fluxus, multimedia art and post-modernism.
Through all the tribulations of his life, Schwitters stood his ground with his undogmatic, non-élitist and democratic creation of Merz, which conjured up its own magic from the rejected and the discarded: small wonder that the Nazis found Schwitters' art subversive and tried to eradicate it. And in our own age of increasing extremism, his message is as valid as it ever was.
(The biography was written by Gwendolen Freundel Webster especially for the Artchive.)
8.1.1948 Died in Ambleside, CMA, England (UK)
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Public exhibitions 144
from 28.11.
until 6.3.2010
until 17.1.2010
until 10.1.2010
until 10.1.2010
until 22.11.
Solo shows 17
2008
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| Kurt Schwitters - Galería Leandro Navarro, Madrid |
2007
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| Kurt Schwitters - Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Curitiba |
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| Kurt Schwitters - Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam |
2004
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| Kurt Schwitters - MERZ – ein Gesamtweltbild - Museum Tinguely, Basel |
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| Kurt Schwitters - Muzeum Sztuki w Lodz, Lodz |
2003
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| Kurt Schwitters: Collages, Paintings, Drawings, Objects, Ephemera - Ubu Gallery, New York City, NY |
2002
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| Kurt Schwitters - Bank Austria Kunstforum, Vienna |
1999
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| Kurt Schwitters y el espíritu de la utopía - Museo de Arte Abstracto Español, Cuenca |
1997
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| Kurt Schwitters - Stadsgalerij Heerlen, Heerlen |
1994
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| Kurt Schwitters - Centre Pompidou - Musée National d´Art Moderne, Paris |
1985
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| Kurt Schwitters - MoMA - Museum of Modern Art, New York City, NY |
1982
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| Kurt Schwitters - Fundación Joan Miró, Barcelona |
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| Kurt Schwitters - Fundación Juan March, Madrid |
1978
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| Kurt Schwitters - - Galerie Gmurzynska - Köln, Cologne (closed, 2006) |
1972
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| Kurt Schwitters - MoMA - Museum of Modern Art, New York City, NY |
1971
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| Kurt Schwitters - Kunstverein in Hamburg, Hamburg |
Group shows 121
2009
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| Other Voices - Art & everyday Life - Museet for Samtidskunst, Roskilde |
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| Fixsterne: 100 Jahre Kunst auf Papier, - Stiftung Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseen - Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig |
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| Begegnung Bauhaus. Kurt Schmidt und Künstler der Avantgarde - von Kandinsky bis Vasarely - Kunstsammlung Gera - Orangerie, Gera |
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| HK Sound Station - Para / Site Art Space, Hong Kong, SAR |
2008
|
| Von der Fläche zum Raum. Malewitsch und die frühe Moderne - Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Baden-Baden |
|
| Aufbruch der Moderne - Zentren konstruktivistischer Gestaltung im Deutschland der 20er Jahre - Museum für Konkrete Kunst, Ingolstadt |
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| ART | 38 | BASEL - Ubu Gallery, New York City, NY |
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| Peripheral vision and collective body - MUSEION - Museum für moderne und zeitgenössische Kunst , Bolzano |
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| Sammlung Marzona - Bielefelder Kunstverein, Bielefeld |
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| Traces du Sacré - Centre Pompidou - Musée National d´Art Moderne, Paris |
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| Ad Absurdum - MARTa Herford, Herford |
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| Genau + anders - Mathematik in der Kunst von Dürer bis Sol LeWitt - Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig - MUMOK , Vienna |
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| "How Artists Draw: Toward the Menil Drawing Institute and Study Center" - The Menil Collection, Houston, TX |
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| Zeitsprung - Galerie Brusberg Berlin, Berlin |
2007
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| Das grosse Finale - 49 Jahre - 9.12.1958 - 8.12.2007 - Galerie Brusberg Berlin, Berlin |
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| Apocalypse Now: The Theater of War - CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, CA |
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| The invisible Show - CCA - The Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv |
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| Die aufregende Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts - Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin |
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| The Société Anonyme: Modernism for America - Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, TN |
|
| Vertigo - The century of off-media art from Futurism to the web - MAMbo - Galleria d´Arte Moderna di Bologna, Bologna |
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| Affinities - Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin |
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| DLD Collection - Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague |
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| Bedürfnis Kunst - Einblicke in die Sammlung Viktor und Marianne Langen - Langen Foundation, Neuss |
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| A Secret Service - Art, Compulsion, Concealment - De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea (England) |
2006
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| Surface Matter: Collage from the collection - Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY |
|
| busy going crazy. the Sylvio Perlstein collection - La Maison Rouge, Paris |
|
| Francis Picabia - Galerie Fred Jahn, Munich |
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| Dada - MoMA - Museum of Modern Art, New York City, NY |
|
| Bildertausch. Neupräsentation der Sammlung Marli Hoppe-Ritter - Museum Ritter, Waldenbuch |
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| Art of Tomorrow - Hilla von Rebay und Solomon R. Guggenheim - Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin |
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| Société Anonyme - Modernism in America - UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA |
|
| Da Monet a Boltanski - Fondazione Magnani - Rocca, Parma |
|
| Dada - The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC |
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| Faites vos jeux! Kunst und Spiel seit Dada - Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich |
|
| Faites vos jeux ! Kunst und Spiel seit Dada - Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen, Siegen |
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| Berlin-Tokyo/Tokyo-Berlin, Art from two cities, Mori - Mori Art Museum, Tokyo |
2005
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| Maestro del Collage-de Picasso a Rauschenberg - Fundación Joan Miró, Barcelona |
|
| La materia dell´Arte - Galleria Cardi, Milan |
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| Looking at Words - Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York City, NY |
|
| Obras Maestras del Siglo XX en las Colecciones del IVAM - Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Esteban Vicente, Segovia |
|
| An Aside: Selected by Tacita Dean - Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea (Wales) |
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| In neuer Frische - Neupräsentation der Sammlung - Wilhelm Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen |
|
| Faites vos jeux! Kunst und Spiel seit Dada - Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz |
|
| Just do it! - Die Subversion der Zeichen von Marcel Duchamp bis Prada Meinhof - Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, Linz |
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| An Aside - Selected by Tacita Dean - Camden Arts Centre, London (England) |
|
| "Out of Site - Selections from the Marsha S. Glazer Collection." - Art Museum at U.C. Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA |
2004
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| Vision einer Sammlung - Museum der Moderne Salzburg Mönchsberg, Salzburg |
|
| Auswahl - Galerie Michael Werner, Cologne |
|
| Arte y utopía - La acción restringida - Museu d´Art Contemporani de Barcelona - MACBA, Barcelona |
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| Between The Lines - James Cohan Gallery - New York, New York City, NY |
|
| Schwitters - Arp - Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel |
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| 25 Jahre Wilhelm-Hack-Museum - 25 Jahre Sammeln - Wilhelm Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen |
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| Modern Means: Continuity and Change in Art from 1880 to the Present - Mori Art Museum, Tokyo |
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| Collage - Bloomberg Space, London (England) |
2003
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| Winter Fairytales: Modern Masters and Russian Avantgarde - Galerie Gmurzynska - St. Moritz, St. Moritz |
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| Assemblage - Zwirner & Wirth, New York City, NY |
|
| The Spirit of White - Galerie Beyeler, Basel |
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| Plunder - Culture as material - Dundee Contemporary Arts - DCA, Dundee (Scotland) |
|
| Collagen - Galerie Biedermann, Munich |
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| Grotesk! - 130 Jahre Kunst der Frechheit - HDK - Haus der Kunst - München, Munich |
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| Not Exactly Photographs - Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, CA |
|
| Musical analogies - Kandinski and his Contemporaries - Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
2002
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| „Konstruktionen” Gemälde 1920–1937 - Galerie Berinson, Berlin |
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| Ferus - Gagosian Gallery - 24th Street, New York City, NY |
2001
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| Kunsthandel Wolfgang Werner 10 Jahre in Berlin - Kunsthandel Wolfgang Werner KG, Berlin |
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| Letters, Signs & Symbols - Paintings, Sculpture and Works on Paper - Brooke Alexander Editions, New York City, NY |
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| De Artaud ... à Twombly - Centre Pompidou - Musée National d´Art Moderne, Paris |
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| De Caspar David Friedrich a Picasso (Obras maestras sobre papel del Museo Von He - Museu d´Art Espanyol Contemporani (Fundación Juan March), Palma de Mallorca |
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| De Caspar David Friedrich a Picasso - Fundación Juan March, Madrid |
2000
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| Graphic Design in the Mechanical Age - Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA |
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| Held op stokken, de kunst van het vogelverschrikken - Museum De Beyerd, Breda |
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| Art concret - Espace de l’art concret, Mouans Sartoux |
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| Some Summer Surrealists - The Mayor Gallery, London (England) |
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| Arte em Berlim no Séc. XX - Museu Serralves - Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto |
|
| Surreale Welten - Von Piranesi bis Dubuffet - Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg |
1999
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| Sechs Mappenwerke aus dem Jahr 1923 - Kunsthandel Wolfgang Werner KG, Berlin |
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| Ausgewählte Werke - Kunsthandel Wolfgang Werner KG, Berlin |
|
| Collecting in Depth: Drawings by Grosz, Schwitters, Ernst, and Klee - MoMA - Museum of Modern Art, New York City, NY |
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| Kurt Schwitters y el espiritu de la utopía - Fundación Juan March, Madrid |
|
| Graphic Design in the Mechanical Age: Selections from the Merrill C. Berman Coll - Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York City, NY |
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| Sammlung Volker Kahmen - Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Dusseldorf |
1998
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| A Sense for Scale II. The Art of the Miniature - The Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH |
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| The Fervour of DADA - ARKEN Museum for Moderne Kunst, Copenhagen |
1997
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| Encounters With Modern Art: Works from the Rothschild Family Collections - San Francisco Museum of Modern Art - SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA |
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| The arrogance of age - Galleri Faurschou - Copenhagen, Copenhagen |
1995
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| Neo-Dada: Redefining Art 1958–1962 - Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, TX |
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| Sculpture as Objects - Curt Marcus Gallery, New York City, NY |
1992
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| The Non-Objective World - Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire (England) |
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| Zufall - Wilhelm Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen |
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| Between a Picture and Objects - Assemblages - Sara Hildén Art Museum, Tampere |
1991
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| Vision of Space - - Galerie Gmurzynska - Köln, Cologne (closed, 2006) |
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| Lydbilleder I - Museet for Samtidskunst, Roskilde |
1990
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| Broken Music - Musée d´art contemporain de Montréal, Montreal, QC |
1989
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| 60 Meisterwerke aus der Solomon R. Gugenheim Foundation - Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin |
1988
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| Surface - Figure - Space - - Galerie Gmurzynska - Köln, Cologne (closed, 2006) |
1987
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| documenta 8 - Documenta, Kassel |
1986
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| Pioneers of Abstract Art from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection - - Galerie Gmurzynska - Köln, Cologne (closed, 2006) |
1980
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| Film und Foto der zwanziger Jahre - Kunstverein in Hamburg, Hamburg |
1979
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| Maestros del Siglo XX - Fundación Juan March, Madrid |
1966
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| Von Impressionismus zum Bauhaus - Kunstverein in Hamburg, Hamburg |
1964
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| documenta 3 - Documenta, Kassel |
1959
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| documenta 2 - Documenta, Kassel |
1958
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| Collage International: From Picasso to the Present - Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, TX |
1955
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| documenta 1 - Documenta, Kassel |
1953
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| 5th Anniversary Exhibition - - Sidney Janis Gallery, New York City, NY (closed) |
1937
|
| Entartete Kunst - - Hofgarten-Arkaden, Munich (closed) |
| Dealer Directory 17 |
Belgium
| | Keitelman Gallery, Brussels
|
France
| | Galerie Natalie Seroussi, Paris
|
Germany
| | Galerie Brusberg Berlin, Berlin
|
| | Galerie Ludorff, Dusseldorf
|
Italy
Switzerland
| | Galerie Gmurzynska - St. Moritz, St. Moritz
|
| | Galerie Gmurzynska - Zug, Zug
|
| | Galerie Gmurzynska - Zürich, Zurich
|
USA
| | Rachel Adler Fine Art, New York City, NY
|
| | Timothy Baum, New York City, NY
|
| | Tobey Fine Arts, New York City, NY
|
| | Ubu Gallery, New York City, NY
|
Public collections 42
Denmark
| | Museet for Samtidskunst, Roskilde
|
Finland
| | Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki
|
France
| | Musée d´Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris - MAM/ARC, Paris
|
| | Centre Pompidou - Musée National d´Art Moderne, Paris
|
| | Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain (MAMCS), Strasbourg
|
Germany
| | Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin
|
| | Museum Folkwang Essen, Essen
|
| | KEOM Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum, Hagen
|
| | Stiftung Moritzburg - Kunstmuseum des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt, Halle (Saale)
|
| | Wilhelm Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen
|
| | Museum Brandhorst, Munich
|
| | Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach
|
Italy
| | MART- Museo d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Rovereto
|
| | Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
|
Japan
| | Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art, Chiba
|
| | Fukuyama Museum of Art, Fukuyama
|
| | Yokohama Museum of Art, Nishi-ku, Yokohama
|
| | MOMAT The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
|
Netherlands
| | Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Amsterdam
|
| | Kröller-Müller museum, Otterlo
|
Poland
| | Muzeum Sztuki w Lodz, Lodz
|
Portugal
| | Berardo Museum - Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art, Lisbon
|
Spain
| | Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía MNCARS, Madrid
|
| | Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
|
Sweden
| | Moderna Museet, Stockholm
|
Switzerland
| | Schaulager, Münchenstein / Basel
|
United Kingdom
| | Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, Cumbria (England)
|
| | Tate Britain, London (England)
|
| | Tate Modern, London (England)
|
USA
| | Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA
|
| | Los Angeles County Museum of Art - LACMA, Los Angeles, CA
|
| | Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
|
| | Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City, NY
|
| | MoMA - Museum of Modern Art, New York City, NY
|
| | The Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH
|
| | Norton Simon Museum of Art, Pasadena, CA
|
| | Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
|
| | The Katzen Arts Center at American University, Washington, DC
|
Catalogs
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