Kurt Schwitters
Kurt Schwitters was a German artist associated with Dada and early twentieth-century avant-garde movements, best known for his Merz collages—assemblages of found materials like ticket stubs, newspaper clippings, and debris.
His work anticipated later developments in assemblage art and mixed media.
Schwitters fled Nazi Germany and spent his final years in England.
Rejection of conventional aesthetics
- Cabaret VoltaireAvant-garde Zurich venue
- ZurichSwiss financial center
- nonsenseMeaningless words or actions
- absurdityWildly illogical quality
Tristan Tzara · satire · provocation · sound poetry · performance · anti-bourgeois · irrationality · anarchy
Collected group of things
- montageAssembled sequence of images
- mixed mediaArt combining diverse materials
- found objectsUnaltered items as art
- ephemeraDisposables preserved as collectibles
layering · juxtaposition · texture · materials · recycling · bus tickets · newspapers · fabric
Anglo-German royal house
- painterOne who applies pigment
- sculptorArtist shaping solid materials
- poetWriter of verse
- GermanyCentral European nation
gallery · exhibition · artwork · composition · Eleanor · Edith · emigration · internment
Systematic testing of ideas
- innovationCreating something original
- modernismFavoring contemporary approaches
- constructivismActive knowledge-building theory
- BauhausInfluential modernist design school
futurism · abstraction · pioneering · unconventional · radical · progressive · revolutionary · vanguard
anti-art
Rejection of conventional aesthetics
- Cabaret VoltaireAvant-garde Zurich venue
- ZurichSwiss financial center
- nonsenseMeaningless words or actions
Tristan Tzara · absurdity · satire · provocation · sound poetry · performance · anti-bourgeois · irrationality · anarchy · readymades
assemblage
Collected group of things
- montageAssembled sequence of images
- mixed mediaArt combining diverse materials
- found objectsUnaltered items as art
ephemera · layering · juxtaposition · texture · materials · recycling · bus tickets · newspapers · fabric · bricolage
Hanover
Anglo-German royal house
Germany · gallery · exhibition · artwork · composition · Eleanor · Edith · emigration · internment · Lake District
experimentation
Systematic testing of ideas
- innovationCreating something original
- modernismFavoring contemporary approaches
- constructivismActive knowledge-building theory
Bauhaus · futurism · abstraction · pioneering · unconventional · radical · progressive · revolutionary · vanguard · nonconformist
- avant-gardeDada, Dadaism, Futurism, Constructivism, Cabaret Voltaire
- German ArtMax Ernst, Der Blaue Reiter, expressionism, Gothic art, Renaissance art
- Poet-PaintersWilliam Blake, E.E. Cummings, Khalil Gibran
- Collage ArtistsRobert Rauschenberg, Max Ernst
- German ModernismBauhaus, Der Blaue Reiter, Dada, Kandinsky, Paul Klee
- ExpressionismEdvard Munch, The Scream, Der Blaue Reiter, German Expressionism, woodcuts
Kurt SchwittersFabergé
Luxury Russian goldsmith house
classical sculpture · goldsmithing · Bernini · lacquerwork · illuminated manuscripts