Kurt Schwitters

This collage dates from the final years of Kurt Schwitters’ career. On 7 January 1948, the artist died in hospital at the age of sixty, from pulmonary oedema and myocarditis. Even before this, he had been struggling with asthma attacks and had suffered a pulmonary haemorrhage. Despite his failing health, he continued to work on paintings and collages, as well as on a new Merzbau – the so-called Merz Barn.

For this collage, Schwitters used dozens of small scraps of paper, including many fragments of found printed matter – product advertisements, packaging, and tickets from England, where he had been living in exile since 1940. Almost all the individual elements are restricted in colour to whites and beige tones, directing attention towards their form and materiality. Associations arise from the provenance of the diverse materials rather than from the composition itself. 

After Schwitters’ death, Naum Gabo, himself an artist and a long-standing friend, recalled:

“In the midst of animated conversation he would suddenly fall silent, absorbed in deep contemplation. One might have thought he was observing a miracle of nature. It was impossible to guess what on earth had fascinated him about some insignificant little patch of ground. Then he would pick something up, which turned out to be an old scrap of paper with a particular texture, a postage stamp, or a discarded ticket. He always cleaned it carefully and lovingly, before presenting it triumphantly. Only then did one realise what an exquisite colour the little scrap possessed.”

Particularly striking in the upper corner of the image is an advertisement for the painting school of the Romanian artist Arthur Segal, bearing the words “Colour and Light”. It is as if Schwitters were pointing here to fundamental aspects and formal elements of painting – but doing so through the medium of collage!