KURT SCHWITTERS AS WRITER, POET AND LECTURER Ernst <strong>Schwitters</strong> (1958) 32 <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>, Ernst <strong>Schwitters</strong> in Lysaker, 1937. © bpk / Sprengel Museum Hannover / <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>
Almost all the pioneers of modern art of the late, nineteen tens, the ‘Great Twenties’, and the early thirties tried to achieve ‘Universal Art’. Few only reached such a degree of versatility as did <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>. Born June 20th, 1887 in Hannover, Germany, in the ‘Golden Age’ of business and bourgeoisie, <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong> had a conventional background and upbringing. At high school he was a brilliant pupil, particularly in mathematics! In drawing — art appreciation did not, as yet, exist in school terminology — he was not above normal but he had already made up his mind. After his matriculation in 1908 he attended the Arts and Craft School at Hannover for a year, then studied at the Academy of Art in Dresden from 1909—1914, with one intermediate guest-year at the Academy of Berlin. His studies were interrupted by World War One, and — in his own words — he “gallantly fought on all fronts of the Waterloo Place”, Hannover’s exercising ground. He succeeded in making so much of a fool of himself and everybody else, that, to the “military mind”, he seemed mildly “touched”, and was, henceforth, released from military duty. Instead he was drafted to draw machines till the end of the war. <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong> hated the war and the false ideals it fought for. When peace, at last, came, the revolutionary search for a better future, for truer ideals, for a strong, functional culture inspired him immensely, and from the very start he was in the forefront of cultural development. In 1918 he rounded off his interrupted studies in painting and drawing by a year of architectural studies at the Technical High School at Hannover. “How”, he said, “I will have to ‘unlearn’ and start working!” Already in 1917 his first abstract pictures had been painted. 1918 saw the birth of his later so famous technique of collage, which he called “MERZ” (and, incidentally, of my own self.—) MERZ-collages were stuck, nailed, in fact built of a large variety of hitherto — for purposes of creating art — unlikely bits of refuse, used as splotches of colours, movement, form, in completely abstract compositions. “Nothing is too Iowly to be used as factors in a composition, in fact, age and signs of wear induce their own patina of beauty.” I believe, it is true to say, that my father saw the great beauty of weariness, tiredness, ruin, which surrounded him everywhere after the war, and of the inherent qualities of these characteristics, to rebuild a better, sounder more honest culture. Beyond this, no “symbolism” should be read into his work as a painter. He created for the sake of beauty. He made pure compositions. However, a parallel developed in his writing, and, particularly during the first, dadaistic period, there was a great similarity, as far as concerns the use of apparently and conventionally useless bits of ‘rubbish’: bits of advertising, proverbs etc., sentences, cut into nonsense, all recombined into a new composition. But — in this dadaistic writing, there definitely was a deeper meaning, however ‘nonsensical’ it appeares at first sight. As much of it is bound to geographical localities and to its particular time, it is 33
- Page 1 and 2: KURT SCHWIT TERS EXIBITION DESIGN B
- Page 3: KURT SCHWIT TERS galerie gmurzynska
- Page 6 and 7: “In part spurred by Rauschenberg
- Page 9 and 10: SUMMARY 10 MERZ (Extract from “AR
- Page 11 and 12: One could make up a catechism of me
- Page 13 and 14: Merz House was my first piece of Me
- Page 15 and 16: 15 Kurt Schwitters (ed.), Merz 2. N
- Page 17 and 18: 17 Kurt Schwitters. Anna Blume. Dic
- Page 19 and 20: t Page from Schwitters’ family al
- Page 21 and 22: t 21 t
- Page 23 and 24: t 23 t
- Page 25 and 26: t 25 t
- Page 27 and 28: t 27 t
- Page 29 and 30: t 29 t
- Page 31: t 31 t
- Page 35 and 36: ‘constructivist’ period, which,
- Page 37 and 38: Sonata and after the Dadaists perio
- Page 39 and 40: Ernst Schwitters, Photograph of Kur
- Page 41 and 42: All this changed at a stroke with t
- Page 43 and 44: As the world changed, as the way of
- Page 45 and 46: 45! was exactly what he had done, i
- Page 47 and 48: 47 t
- Page 49 and 50: 49 t Kurt Schwitters, Hanover 1927
- Page 51 and 52: 51 t
- Page 53 and 54: 53 look down upon the apparent nons
- Page 55 and 56: 55 t Ernst Schwitters, Kurt Schwitt
- Page 57 and 58: t 57 t The beginning of Merz theory
- Page 59 and 60: 59 t t Blume and wants to love and
- Page 61 and 62: t The consequence of DADA: MERZ ·
- Page 63 and 64: t 63 t A radical act, whose radical
- Page 65 and 66: tt65 The consequence of DADA: MERZ
- Page 67 and 68: 67 tt (core Dada and Huelsendada).
- Page 69 and 70: t 69 t Modern Age), succeeding the
- Page 71 and 72: t 71 t BATTLE CRY WITH VERVE Merz 7
- Page 73 and 74: t 73 t develop. There is only art.
- Page 75 and 76: t 75 t to inspire the Merzgesamtkun
- Page 77 and 78: l In the political and social chaos
- Page 79 and 80: l Like Kandinsky’s abstractions o
- Page 81 and 82: l 81 SCHWITTERS: Tending the Enchan
- Page 83 and 84:
l 19 Kurt Schwitters, “Merzbühne
- Page 85 and 86:
l by the times themselves.” 31 Bu
- Page 87 and 88:
l Kurt Schwitters, Pollfoss, 1947 O
- Page 89 and 90:
Kurt Schwitters, who knew a lot of
- Page 91 and 92:
you liked my sonata. May I introduc
- Page 93 and 94:
93 Photograph of Helma Schwitters,
- Page 95 and 96:
Postcard Kurt and Helma Schwitters
- Page 97 and 98:
97 Kurt Schwitters: A genius in fri
- Page 99 and 100:
the Merzbau in Waldhausenstraße 5
- Page 101 and 102:
101
- Page 103 and 104:
103
- Page 105 and 106:
105
- Page 107 and 108:
107
- Page 109 and 110:
109
- Page 111 and 112:
111 journal Der Sturm (Monatsschrif
- Page 113 and 114:
113
- Page 115 and 116:
115 artists. In the wake of this co
- Page 117 and 118:
p. 117-119 cover and two pages by K
- Page 119 and 120:
119
- Page 121 and 122:
“I think I could do well in the U
- Page 123 and 124:
Letter from Kurt Schwitters to Kath
- Page 125 and 126:
together with Alfred Barr and the c
- Page 127 and 128:
exhibition in the Pinacotheca Galle
- Page 129 and 130:
and gallerist Peggy Guggenheim, who
- Page 131 and 132:
collectors and leading institutions
- Page 133 and 134:
he also designed the catalogue: a p
- Page 135 and 136:
135
- Page 137 and 138:
137
- Page 139 and 140:
139
- Page 141 and 142:
141 All art of any significance com
- Page 143 and 144:
143 The extraordinary American coll
- Page 145 and 146:
145 What Schwitters describes in th
- Page 147 and 148:
147 It is perhaps pertinently stran
- Page 149 and 150:
NR: Tell me, Damien, when did you f
- Page 151 and 152:
as important as Marcel Duchamp. DH:
- Page 153 and 154:
NR: So what happened to the house?
- Page 155 and 156:
“Imitation remains imitation. Imi
- Page 157:
Kurt Schwitters, Auwiese, 1920, new
- Page 160 and 161:
Hausmann, and Hannah Höch, all of
- Page 162 and 163:
In November, Schwitters publishes M
- Page 164 and 165:
several weeks later becomes dictato
- Page 166 and 167:
exhibition catalogue. In November 1
- Page 168 and 169:
Original Recordings by Kurt Schwitt
- Page 170 and 171:
Collage/Collages from Cubism to New
- Page 172 and 173:
1, 3, and 4. Ed. Perdita Lottner. E
- Page 174 and 175:
The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Ka
- Page 176:
WWW.GMURZYNSKA.COM