History Lesson — Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948)

Kurt Schwitters is one of the 20th Century’s best known collage artist. Born in Hannover, he studied art in Dresden then began to make collage work around the age of 30. It has been said that: He’d been denied membership in Berlin’s Club Dada for not being “political enough,” so shrugged his shoulders and formed the Dada sub-movement of Merz (a fragment of the word “Kommerz,” taken from a bank’s newspaper advertisement and incorporated into an early piece). Though Merz’ membership was limited to Schwitters, he often collaborated with other Dadaists.

The Nazi regime banned Schwitters’s work as “degenerate art” in 1937.

The first of the four images is from the Sprengel Museum Hannover.

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