Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) is a German painter, sculptor, typographer and writer. Influenced by Expressionism and cubism, The impressions of the war and the inflation made him a modern artist, who even left Expressionism behind; his first collages emerged in 1918, for which Kurt Schwitters used litter found by chance. His art and literary texts became a Dadaist institution in Hanover, which he called “Merz”, a fragment of the word “Commerzbank”. “Anna Blume”, a collection of poems and prosaic texts published in 1919, made him famous far beyond Hanover’s boundaries. >>>Few examples of Kurt Schwitters work.>>>Schwitters is most famous for his abstract collages which he began to make in the winter of 1918/19, he uses found and everyday objects such as labels, bus tickets, fabric and bits of broken wood. They were born out of his post-war feeling: ‘Everything had broken down and new things had to be made out of the fragments; and this is Merz.’

Schwitters work from this period are characterized by a gradual move to more rectilinear, simpler compositions with cleaner, sharper lines and the use of large blocks of single colours, taking inspiration from the new generation of Constructivists from Eastern Europe and the Netherlands. Other highlights include later works such as Collage with playing cards, incorporating fragments from packaging and newspapers reflecting British life as well as assemblages such as Eye on Cheese, 1944-47 and Gold Tee, 1947 incorporating organic material and objects found on a beach, such as wax, drift wood and pebbles, replacing the mass produced ephemera of previous years reflecting his move away from London to rural Cumbria in 1945. The discarded and the useless to fine art, inspired such post-war pioneers as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Hamilton and Joseph Beuys; and he is now seen as the grandfather of many post-1945 art movements, from Pop Art to Conceptual, Installation and Performance Art.

I think it’s so absorbing how Schwitters would turn something which would turn out to be an old scrap of paper into something carefully and lovingly, clean it up and then triumphantly show it to his audience. He shows so much beauty and passion which he has brought into his work which fascinates me. Schwitters pieces of art relate to one of the workshops we did ‘photograms’ where we had to place random objects on photographic paper in the darkroom and develop them. It feels like its a similar technique used her. Although it is done differently it just looks comparable. I really like the technique Schwitters has created, It expresses cubism the use of shapes and patterns which are moulding that influenced style.