Title: Kurt Schwitters
Description: | Introductory monograph on the life and work of this outstanding multitalented artist

Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948) was a key figure of the twentieth-century avant-garde, an all-rounder whose diverse activities as an artist, writer, typographer, and performer were unequalled by any of his contemporaries. He is now acknowledged as the master of collage and a pioneer of modern movements, from Pop Art and Fluxus to Conceptual and multimedia art. Though inspired by Dada and Constructivism, his guiding principle remained his one-man movement of MERZ—a means, he said, of establishing relationships, best of all between all the things in the world. MERZ proved anathema to the Nazis, and in 1937 Schwitters fled Hannover to Norway and finally to England.

This overview of Schwitters’s life and work casts new light on his art, his writings, and his ventures into commercial art. It also offers a new perspective on the Merzbau, the monumental interior he referred to as his “life’s work.” (German edition ISBN 978-3-7757-2512-5)
Subjects: Abstractieon, Weimar Republic, Degenerate Art, Entartete Kunst, Ursonate, Nasci, Société Anonyme, Surrealism, Dada, Sturm, German Romanticism, sculpture, abstrakten hannover, ring neue werbegestalter, performance, readymade, Constructivism, De Stijl, Cubism, Expressionism, Bauhaus, Pelikan, PEN club, Kestnergesellschaft, Merz, Merzbau, Futurism, Gesamtkunstwerk, architecture, typography, Criticism and interpretation, Schwitters, kurt, 1887-1948, Painting, german, Painting, exhibitions, Schwitters, Kurt, 1887-1948 -- Criticism and interpretation
Places: Berlin, Dammerstocksiedlung, Weissenhofsiedlung, Stuttgart, Weimar, Vienna, Hjertoya, Molde, Karlsruhe, Ambleside, Elterwater, Prague, Hannover, Hanover, Isle of Man, Oslo, Lysaker, London, Norway, Paris, Hildesheim, Museum of Modern Art New York, MoMA
People: Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948), Helma Schwitters, Ernst Schwitters, Hans Arp, Josef Albers, Alfred H. Barr, Paul Bowles, Herbert Garvens, Richard Hamilton, Jack Bilbo (1907-1967), Umberto Boccioni, Marc Chagall, Charlie Chaplin, Robert Delaunay, Theo van Doesburg, Katherine Dreier, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), Bruno Taut, John Elderfield, Stefan Themerson, Jan Tschichold, Edith Thomas/Wantee, Christoph Spengemenn, Paul Steegemann, Kate Steinitz, August Stramm, Robert Rauschenberg, Paul Renner, Hans Richter, Herbert Edward Read Sir (1893-1968), Bodo Rasch, Harry Pierce, Sigfried Giedion, Roland Penrose, E.L.T. Mesens, Mies van der Rohe, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Piet Mondrian, Annie Müller-Widmann, Friedhelm Lach, Carola Giedion-Welcker, Kasimir Malevich, Tomaso Marinetti, Le Corbusier, El Lissitzky, Walter Gieseking, Raoul Hausmann, Oliver Kaufmann, Vasily Kandinsky, Friedrich Kiesler, Paul Klee, Ludwig Hilbersheimer, Lothar Schreyer, Hannah Höch, Richard Huelsenbeck, Max Ernst (1891-1976), Naum Gabo, Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), Herwart Walden, Rudolf Blümner
Time periods: 1887-1948