Kurt Schwitters German artist Date of Birth: 20.06.1887 Country: Germany

Kurt Schwitters: A German Artist and Pioneer of Collage

Kurt Schwitters was a German artist who primarily worked in the technique of collage and assemblage, exerting a significant influence on the development of modern art. Born on June 20, 1887, in Hanover, Germany, Schwitters studied at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts from 1909 to 1914.

During World War I, he served in the German army and, upon returning to Hanover, began experimenting with abstract art. He started incorporating pieces of cigarette wrappers, ticket stubs, and other scraps of paper with text instead of traditional paints onto the surface of his works. In one of his collages, Schwitters included the capital letters MERZ, which he cut out from an advertising poster. He later frequently used cut-out letters, words, and sentences in his art. Thus, Schwitters anticipated the juxtaposition of word and image in the art of the 1960s.

Schwitters began referring to all his constructions made from discarded materials with the meaningless word MERZ, which he also named a journal he published from 1923 to 1932. The main goals of the journal were to present theories and critique new artistic movements, such as Dadaism and Constructivism. Schwitters also used the term MERZ to refer to his poetry, which he started writing in 1917, and even to himself.

In the late 1910s, the artist created large reliefs composed of wheels, wooden planks, nails, and wire mesh. Unlike his more intimate collages, these assemblages appeared monumental. In the 1920s and 1930s, he expanded the scope of his creative efforts by constructing columns that were conglomerations of various objects and materials, which he called Merzbau. Later on, he applied the concept of Merzbau to create a massive assemblage of objects that occupied a significant portion of a three-story house. Merzbau served as a precursor to the 1960s environment art, specializing in the creation of enormous and unwieldy structures.

Unfortunately, Schwitters' first Merzbau, located in Hanover, was destroyed during a bombing in World War II. When the Nazis came to power, the artist fled to Norway, where he began constructing a second Merzbau. However, he was forced to leave the country and emigrate to England after the German occupation of Norway. Schwitters passed away in Ambleside on January 8, 1948. His immediate successors include artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns.