With Arp, he attended the Kongress der Konstructivisten in Weimar in 1922. There Schwitters met Theo van Doesburg, whose De Stijl principles influenced his work. Schwitters’s Dada activities included his Merz-Matineen and Merz-Abende at which he presented his poetry. From 1923 to 1932, he published the magazine Merz. About 1923, the artist started to make his first Merzbau, a fantastic structure he built over a number of years; the Merzbau grew to occupy much of his Hannover studio.
The original Merzbau in Schwitter's Hannover studio
A contemporary reconstruction of the original Merzbau
The Nazi regime banned Schwitters’ work as ‘degenerate art’ in 1937. This year, the artist fled to Lysaker, Norway, where he constructed a second Merzbau. After the German invasion of Norway in 1940, Schwitters escaped to Great Britain, where he was interned for over a year.
He settled in London following his release, but moved to Little Langdale in the Lake District in 1945. There, helped by a stipend from the Museum of Modern Art, he began work on a third Merzbau in 1947. The project was left unfinished when Schwitters died in 1948 in Kendal, England.
Schwitters' London home at 39 Westmorland Road, Barnes.
1919 Bild mit heller Mitte [Picture with Light Centre]
1919 Das Undbild [The And-Picture]
1919 Revolving
1921 Merz 299
1921 Merz 460 Two Underdrawers
1922 Der Weihnachtsmann [Santa Claus]
1922 Merz 410 irgendsowas [Something or Other]
1922 Table Salt
1923 Aphorism
1923 Merz 231 Miss Blanche
Pausing here for a little comparison of the above collage with Peter Blake's 2005 silkscreen series of found art Cigarette Packs. From CCA Galleries: "Sir Peter Blake's found art cigarette packets or fag packets as they have come to be affectionately known. This series demonstrates Blake’s belief that beauty can be found anywhere, even in objects that most would believe to be rubbish. The fag packets highlight iconic 20th century design and branding, a key component in the pop art movement. The simplicity of these pieces adds to their wallpower.”
Peter Blake: 2005 Gigarette Packs [silkscreen]
1925 Elikan
1928 Untitled
1930 Oorlog
1937-38 Opened by Customs
1938 Die Fruhlingstur [The Spring Door]
1942-43 [Difficult]
1944 [Hitler Gang]
1947 The Holy Night by Antoni Allegri, known as Corregio,
worked through by Kurt Schwitters]
Another view of the Merzbau reconstruction
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