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Kurt Schwitters 1887-1948 — The Collage Genius

Kurt Schwitters was born in Germany in 1887, the only son of affluent parents. During his youth, he experienced poor health and was haunted by insecurities. As a young student at Dresden Academy of Art, his work was called "unimaginative." Astoundingly, the man who later was seen as the grandfather of Pop Art, multimedia art and post modernism and the acknowledged master of 20th century collage started his artistic career with this poor critical acceptance.

Schwitters began his creative experience with expressionistic work, but this initial work was considered less than progressive. Then, in 1919, he took part in an exhibit that caused a stir among the critics. His works exuded inner tension, a juxtaposition of sensitivity between abstraction and reality. Schwitters was the first to transform trash into art, and what the viewer saw was material never thought of as art, displayed and revered as true creative expression. What others threw away, he used in a unique context, the result of which was pure drama. Therefore, this work is considered by many critics to be the first true wedding of art and life.

Of this group of early works, the abstracts Schwitters called "Merz" show his innate sensitivity and emotional play of color, balance, content and form. These were the first assemblages where he used scraps and trash. This exploration of color, design, and that inner tension are what shocked and enthralled not only critics of the time, but art lovers to this day. He later came to refer to all his work as "Merz."

Schwitters was, by most standards, a late bloomer. He was 32 before receiving any recognition of his work and before any work was exhibited. But when the exhibit came, it changed his life dramatically. He was suddenly drawn from obscurity and placed in the center of contemporary art. He quickly joined the art "avant-garde" of the time and worked with two strong groups of creative masters: Dadaists, which included such well-known artists as Klee, Kandinsky and Schlemmer; and the Constructivists of Eastern Europe. (Dada is a free and spontaneous artistic creativity that carried moral/aesthetic values to the point of absurdity. Constructivism was the very first movement whose aim was to create completely non-objective sculpture, sculpture that was more contemporary architecture than traditional art.)

Because of these affiliations and strong interest on the part of Schwitters, is it any wonder that at this point all restrictions on his creative style seemed to disappear? Over the next decade he immersed himself in experimental expressions that included not only multimedia art, but also abstract drama, poetry, cabaret, typography, body painting, music, photography and architecture as well. In 1923 he even published a magazine (Merz) that was printed on an irregular basis and then founded a successful advertising agency in 1924.

As a master of color and balance and, in association with Constructivism, in 1924 Schwitters' work made another dramatic change. His Merz pictures started to be more clear-cut, the textures more uniform, and the individual elements became larger, yet simplified. During this period, he began a monumental construction originally titled "Cathedral of Erotic Misery" that came to be known as "Merzbau" and worked on it from 1923 to 1932. Today this work would be classified as an environmental piece, as it grew to include eight rooms of his home in Hanover. It was extremely innovative for the time, was considered shocking in his day, and was as radical as any work done by contemporary artists today.

With the onslaught of war in Nazi Germany, Schwitters was forced into hiding. His work was considered to be so controversial that it was once displayed by the German government to prove his open defiance. In 1931 Schwitters' father died and his death started yet another phase in the artist's work. Gone were the bright colors, replaced with drab hues and works full of contemplative moodiness. In 1937 he fled his beloved home, abandoning his Merzbau work and immigrating to Norway—never to return to Germany.

The move started a third revolution in Schwitters' life. He started a second Merzbau (now a life's mission) in Norway, only to have to abandon it when Norway was invaded in 1940. Again he fled, this time to England where he was imprisoned until 1941. After release, Schwitters stayed in London until 1945 when he moved and started yet another Merzbau. The New York Museum of Modern Art financed this one and it came to be known as the "Merz Barn." He did not live to complete the project and, regrettably, none of his Merzbau creations exist today.

Kurt Schwitters died at the age of 66, in poverty and poor health, but believing that his work would someday be recognized for its genius. Not only did this come to pass, but Schwitters is also credited with initiating so many of today's modern art movements: multimedia, post-modernism, Pop Art and more. What a legacy!

Copyright ARTtalk Vol. 11 No. 2 -- December 2000