Kurt Schwitters: Merz (2016) – Norman Rosenthal interviews Damien Hirst

Clare Elliott
This chronology gives a brief overview of Kurt Schwitters’s
life and career with a special concentration on events
relating to the reception of his art in the United States. For
a more comprehensive biography, see Karin Orchard and
Isabel Schulz, Kurt Schwitters: Catalogue Raisonné, the
first volume of which is a key source of this chronology,
together with the provenance and exhibition information
in all three volumes. Other sources consulted include, in
order of relative importance, correspondence in the Kurt
Schwitters Archiv, Sprengel Museum Hannover; The
Société Anonyme: Modernism for America, ed. Jennifer
R. Gross, 2006; Dada in the Collection of The Museum
of Modern Art, Anne Umland and Adrian Sudhalter,
2008; Kurt Schwitters, John Elderfield, 1985; and Kurt
Schwitters, Werner Schmalenbach, 1967 (English ed.).
1887
Curt “Kurt” Hermann Eduard Carl Julius Schwitters
is born on June 20 in Hanover, a small city in the
Lower Saxony region of Germany. His parents, Eduard
and Henriette (née Beckemeyer) Schwitters, own a
prosperous clothing store.
In the first few years of Kurt Schwitters’s life, his family
moves several times within Hanover. In 1901 they
settle permanently at 5 Waldhausstrasse (renamed
Waldhausenstrasse in 1907).
1908 -14
Schwitters begins to study art and write poetry.
He attends various art schools: the Kunstgewerbeschule
in Hanover in 1908—9; the Berliner Akademie der Künste
in 1911, where he is expelled as “untalented” after a
four-week probationary period; and Königlich Sächsische
Akademie der Künste in Dresden between 1909 and
1914. While in Dresden he paints in conservative,
academic, and eventually impressionistic styles.
In the spring of 1911, Schwitters’s work is rejected by
the Kunstgenossenschaft Hannover, but he is included
in their August exhibition. Two years later, his work is
shown for the first time in the large annual exhibition
“Grosse Kunstausstellung” February—May 1913, at the
Hannover Kunstverein, and the annual autumn exhibition
of local artists in September—October. He will exhibit
regularly at the Kunstverein until 1934.
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria
on June 28, 1914, brings about World War I. Germany
declares war on Russia and France. Schwitters returns
to Hanover.
1915
Schwitters and his first cousin Wilhelmine “Helma”
Eilerdine Gerhardine Friederike Fischer marry on October
5. They move into a flat in 5 Waldhausenstrasse, where
Schwitters also sets up a studio. The couple goes on
to have two sons: Gerd Schwitters, born September
9, 1916, who dies only eight days later, and Ernst
Schwitters, born November 16, 1918.
1917
Schwitters exhibits for the first time at the Kestner
Gesellschaft, Hanover, in May—June 1917. Established
the year before by Paul Erich Küppers, the Kestner
Gesellschaft brings diverse avant-garde artists to the
relatively provincial Hanover, exposing Schwitters to a
variety of new artistic styles. He begins painting and
drawing in an Expressionist style and his work becomes
increasingly abstract. Also in this year, Schwitters meets
Christof Spengemann a critic journalist, and publisher,
with whom he becomes a lasting friend, Spengemann
introduces Schwitters to key players in Hanover’s literary
circles.
In March, Schwitters is drafted into the German army,
Reichs-lnfanterieregiment 73, but because he suffers
from epilepsy, he is declared unfit for service. Beginning
in June he performs military service as a draftsman in
the WülfeI ironworks in Hanover until November 1918.
1918
Schwitters meets artist and art historian Kate Steinitz,
with whom he will collaborate on several projects and
remain friends throughout his life. When she moves
to California in 1942, Steinitz will play a key role in
introducing Schwitters’s work to the West Coast of the
United States.
Schwitters joins the Hannoversche Secession, a group
of local artists who had established themselves the
previous June in opposition to the conservative Hannover
Kunstverein. He participates in their first exhibition at the
Kestner Gesellschaft.
In June, Herwarth Walden includes Schwitters’s work for
the first time in his famed Galerie Der Sturm in Berlin.
Established in 1913, the gallery, known as the primary
sponsor of German Expressionism, was the focal point
of the Berlin avant-garde for more than a decade. By
1918 the activities include art classes, lectures, and the
publication of books and portfolios; its multi-disciplinary
approach influences the development of Schwitters’s
own thinking about art. Schwitters will perform and
exhibit regularly at Galerie Der Sturm until 1928; he
makes numerous contributions to the journal Der Sturm
from 1919 to 1928.
In Berlin, Schwitters meets artists Hans Arp, Raoul
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