Kurt schwitters brief biography of prophet

1930

Maraak, Variation I (Merzbild)

This work, featuring mono-color painted rectangles laid out side by side in a way that emphasizes the flatness of the canvas, demonstrates Schwitters' grasp of a more abstract style in the late 1920s, one indicative of his growing interest in De Stijl.

The artist's formal evolution is additionally noted in the way the artist alters his found materials, painting over their surfaces in an effort to deemphasize their origins as elements from the outside world. The resulting collages were characterized by their especially harmonious, sentimental arrangements and their incorporation of printed media.

In 1940, they left for Britain, where they were both interned on the Isle of Man. After his release, Schwitters remained in London until the end of the war when he moved to the Lake District, where he lived until his death. Although the use of found objects aligns him with other branches of Dada, his bold dependence on society's throw-aways provoked additional associations on the part of the viewer and differentiated his expression.

Together they created children's stories notable for their bold, linear design and typography. This sudden shift is largely associated with the collapse of economic and political stability in Germany at the end of World War I and the rising tide of the multi-national Dada movement. These works, collaborations with other avant-garde artists, would start with one object to which others were added, causing the whole piece to change and evolve over time, growing to great proportions that forced the viewer to actually experience, rather than simply view, the art.

Accomplishments

• Schwitters used actual trash, such as broken items and scraps of paper, in his collages and assemblages.

  In Revolving, found items are organized to form lines and shapes to which he adds bits of yellow and blue paint for shading. Noted in other books and periodicals published at the time in both Europe and Russia, this aesthetic exemplifies the most innovative, daring and up-to-date graphic design trend.

  

  This project, located in the artist's Hanover studio, began as a single "column" comprised of cardboard scraps, newspaper clippings, and varied detritus. This tremendous loss, and the fact that he did not receive commercial success during his lifetime, has complicated gauging his significant contribution to modern art.

  Nevertheless, Schwitters anticipated many of the most significant trends in avant-garde art, most importantly the combination and manipulation of ordinary materials within multi-media oeuvre, as noted in the works of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg and an almost whimsical approach to art as noted in that of Claes Oldenburg.

  The concept that attaching small objects (not to mention - garbage) to the surface of the canvas could be considered art was radical.
  
  The focal point of the image is a white flashcard featuring a printed cluster of cherries and the German and French words for "cherry" upon which he has scribbled an ungrammatical phrase "Ich liebe dir!" ("I love she!").

  Schwitters hoped to encourage listeners to make connections between the sounds and accordingly arrive at their own personal meaning, exactly as he hoped would be the effect of his collages.
  
  February/March 1918
  Contributes to the first show of the Hanover Secession at the Kestner-Gesellschaft. These examples of commercial culture provoked the viewer to consider the relationship between art and everyday life.

  His Merzbau, for example, created through collaboration with other artists and evolving with the constant addition of elements, were a kind of walk-in collage necessitating the viewer to assume an active role in the work's interpretation and significance.

• In a very different format, but with similarly exploratory goals, Schwitters created a poem he called Ursonate, a musical composition composed of letters strung together into sounds, not words, which compelled the audience to create her own connections and draw her own significance.

  Despite this, he traveled frequently throughout Europe organizing exhibitions and maintaining contact with an extensive network of artists. In this way the Merz journal united different avant-garde networks while serving as a platform to promote Schwitters' own diverse work. Schwitters was originally exempt from military service during World War I, due to his epilepsy, but when conscription was extended to a wider portion of the population, he was enlisted.

  Schwitters continued to add objects to this "column" which gradually changed and transformed Schwitters' entire living space into a series of grottoes and caves. Taught by Richard Schlösser.
  
  1909-1915
  Studies at the Royal Saxon Academy of Art in Dresden on the recommendation of his teacher Richard Schlösser.