Kurt Schwitters

Lore & Background

Kurt Schwitters was born in Hanover, the only child of Eduard Schwitters and Henriette Beckemeyer. His father co-owned a ladies' clothes shop, sold in 1898, with the proceeds used to buy rental properties that supported the family. In 1901, Schwitters had his first epileptic seizure, which exempted him from military service until late in World War I. He studied art at the Dresden Academy from 1909 to 1915 alongside Otto Dix and George Grosz, though he was apparently unaware of their work or of the contemporary Dresden artists Die Brücke. He returned to Hanover and began his career as a Post-Impressionist, exhibiting for the first time in 1911. During the war, his work darkened into expressionism. He married his cousin Helma Fischer in 1915; their first son died within a week of birth in 1916, and their second son, Ernst, was born in 1918. Schwitters worked as a draftsman in a factory outside Hanover for the last year and a half of the war, an experience that influenced his later work and inspired him to depict machines as metaphors of human activity.

Reader's Guide

Schwitters's significance lies in his invention of Merz, a term he derived from a fragment of the phrase 'Commerz Und Privatbank' in his work Das Merzbild (1918–1919). Merz involved creating collages from found objects, making coherent aesthetic sense of fragments. He first exhibited at Der Sturm gallery in Berlin in June 1918, and his poem An Anna Blume was published in August 1919. Though he asked to join Berlin Dada, according to Raoul Hausmann, Richard Huelsenbeck rejected the application due to Schwitters's links to Der Sturm and Expressionism; however, evidence suggests Schwitters and Huelsenbeck were initially on amicable terms, and it is unlikely Schwitters ever intended to join. Schwitters employed Dadaist ideas and gave Dada recitals across Europe with Theo van Doesburg, Tristan Tzara, Jean Arp, and Raoul Hausmann. His work was more aligned with Zürich Dada's abstract and performance focus than Berlin Dada's political agit-prop. He remained close friends with Hannah Höch and Hausmann. His legacy includes the Merzbau, a large sculptural environment begun at his family home in Hanover, and his influence on later collage and installation art.

Did You Know?

• Schwitters coined the term 'Merz' from a fragment of the phrase 'Commerz Und Privatbank' in his work Das Merzbild.
• He was exempted from military service in World War I due to epilepsy, but was conscripted briefly in 1917 before being exempted again.
• His poem 'An Anna Blume' was published in August 1919 and became well-known.
• Schwitters gave Dada recitals in the Netherlands in 1922 with Theo van Doesburg, Nelly van Doesburg, and sometimes Vilmos Huszàr.

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"In: 'Merz Painting' (1919); as quoted in I is Style, ed. Siegfried Gohr & Gunda Luyken, NAI Publishers, Rotterdam 2000, p. 91." — Kurt Schwitters "In: 'Merz Painting' (1919); as quoted in I is Style, ed. Siegfried Gohr & Gunda Luyken, NAI Publishers, Rotterdam 2000, p. 91." — Kurt Schwitters "In: 'Merz. Für den Ararat geschrieben' (1920); as quoted in Kurt Schwitters, das literarische Werk, ed. Friedhelm Lach, Dumont Cologne, 1973–1981, Vol. 5 p. 77." — Kurt Schwitters "Schwitters (1921) in: Abstract Art, Anna Moszynska, Thames and Hudson, London 1990, p. 68-69." — Kurt Schwitters