Kurt Schwitters

Kurt Schwitters was born in Hanover in 1887. His parents were well-to-do members of the middle class who ran a ladies’ clothes shop. At the age of four, he was diagnosed with a nervous disorder. After completing his secondary education, he studied at the Hanover School of Arts and Crafts. A year later, he transferred to the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden, where he received a classical training as a painter.

Kurt Schwitters began taking part in exhibitions in 1911. In 1915, he married Helma Fischer, and the couple moved into an apartment in his parents’ house. Declared unfit for military service, Schwitters instead worked in an ironworks in Hanover. At the same time, he began engaging with modern artistic trends. In the years that followed, he came into contact with numerous figures of modernism. He was friends with Hannah Höch, Hans Arp, El Lissitzky and Theo van Doesburg, and was well acquainted with members of the Bauhaus, the Dutch group De Stijl, and the Berlin Dada group.

In 1918, Kurt Schwitters’ son Ernst, was born. A year later, Schwitters introduced the term Merz to describe all aspects of his creative work. He painted and produced collages in the spirit of Dadaism, later developing these into geometric, abstract compositions. Alongside his visual art, Schwitters wrote poems and other texts and performed at what he called “Merz evenings” – events that combined readings with performance. He is thought to have begun work on the Merzbau in the early 1920s, continuing to develop it until he went into exile in 1937. From 1924 onwards, Schwitters devoted increasing attention to typography and advertising, founding his Merz-Werbezentrale, or “Merz Advertising Agency”. From 1930, he regularly spent the summer months in Norway with his wife and son. During this period, he was a member of various groups of abstract artists, ranging from Hanover to Paris. 

In 1933, the National Socialists labelled Schwitters’ work “degenerate”. In 1937, he emigrated to Norway. Following the invasion by the German Wehrmacht, he fled with his son Ernst to England, where he was interned as an enemy alien between 1940 and 1941. After his release, Schwitters lived in London. In 1944, he learned of the death of his wife Helma, whom he had not seen since 1939. In 1945, he moved to the English Lake District, where he died in 1948.