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

several weeks later becomes dictator of Germany.
As the political situation in Germany becomes
increasingly difficult for avant-garde artists, Schwitters
begins withdrawing from public appearances and
exhibitions, focusing instead on the Merzbau.
Reproductions of Schwitters’s works are included in
the exhibition “Novembergeist: Kunst im Dienste der
Zersetzung” (November Spirit: Art in the Service of
Moral Corruption), June—September 1933, Stuttgart
and Bielefeld, organized by the National Socialists with
the intent to ridicule modern art and artists.
1934
Schwitters meets Tommaso Marinetti, founder of
Futurism, at the Berlin opening of the exhibition
“Aeropittura,” on March 28.
In the summer Schwitters begins a second Merz
construction, Hütte auf Hjertøya (Cottage on Hjertøya),
1932—39, in a primitive hut on the island of Hjertøya in
Moldefjord, Norway.
The last presentation of Schwitters’s work in Nazicontrolled
Germany (other than in derogatory exhibitions
organized by the government), is the annual autumn
“Herbstausstellung Hannoverscher Künstler” at the
Hannover Kunstverein, October—November.
Mz 199, 1921 (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
New York), is included in “Modern Works of Art: Fifth
Anniversary Exhibition,” November19, 1934—January
20, 1935, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, marking
the first time Schwitters’s work was on view there.
1935
L Merzbild L3 (Das Merzbild) [L Merz Picture L3 (The
Merz Picture)], 1919, and Ringbild (Ring Picture), 1920/21,
are confiscated from the Stadtmuseum Dresden and put
into the first “Entartete Kunst,” an exhibition of modern
art deemed degenerate (entartete) by the National
Socialists. The first such exhibition began in Dresden
in September1933 and ended in Frankfurt, September
1936; a second “Entartete Kunst” tours Germany from
July 18, 1937, until April 20, 1941. Both works are now
lost and presumed destroyed.
In May, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., director of the Museum of
Modern Art, New York, visits the Schwitterses’ home
in Hanover. Barr had most likely been introduced to
the artist’s work through his close association with
Dreier. Although Schwitters is in Norway, Barr views the
Merzbau. A few months later, while he is in Paris, Barr
purchases Reichardt-Schwertschlag Father Christmas,
1922, from the poet Paul Eluard for the museum’s
collection. The next year in Berlin he purchases Drawing
A 2 House. [Hansi], 1918, and Mz. 379. Potsdamer, also
for the museum’s collection, where they alI three remain
today.
By this time, American collector Albert Eugene Gallatin
had purchased two works by Schwitters, Merzbild
20a (Bild Streichholz—Hosenknopf) (Merz Picture 20a
(Picture Match—Trouser—Button)], 1919, and Untitled
(Merz Construction, Top), ca. 1923—26. Parts of
Gallatin’s collection of modern art were on continuous
view in New York at his Gallery of Living Art (later the
Museum of Living Art) from 1927 to 1936. In 1942 the
collection, including the two works noted above, moved
to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where it remains.
1936
Alfred Barr places Schwitters’s works in two Museum
of Modern Art exhibitions: six in ‘Cubism and Abstract
Art,” March 2—April 19, and four in “Fantastic Art,
Dada, Surrealism,” December 1936—January 1937. Nine
photographs of the Hanover Merzbau are also included
in the exhibition and catalogue for “Fantastic Art”.
In November, Schwitters writes to both Barr and Josef
Albers, also living in the States, proposing to build a room
in the U.S. similar to the Merzbau, which he describes as
an abstract sculpture into which one can enter. Neither
Barr nor Albers pursues the idea.
The same month, Schwitters writes to Dreier from
Amsterdam, reporting on developments in his art and
advising her to write to him only in the Netherlands or
under a pseudonym.
1937
Due to the increasingly hostile political situation in
Germany, Schwitters flees to Norway on January 2,
joining his son, Ernst, who had left two weeks earlier.
Helma Schwitters remains in Hanover, visiting her
husband occasionally. Fortunately, Schwitters is able
to arrange for most of his work to be shipped from
his studio in Hanover to Norway. He begins building a
third Merz construction in Lysaker, the Haus am Bakken
(House on the Slope; destroyed 1951).
During her last trip to Europe, in spring 1937, Dreier visits
Helma in Hanover and views the Merzbau.
Throughout the summer Nazis continue to purge German
museums of modern art; works by Schwitters are
removed from institutions in Berlin, Hanover, Mannheim,
Breslau, Saarbrücken, Wiesbaden, and elsewhere. The
Merz Picture, 1919; Ring Picture, 1920/21; Mz 190,
164