Musée No:583.097
Regular price £25.00Without Title (Pino Antoni)
Artist : Kurt Schwitters
Date : 1933-34
Kurt Schwitters (1887 - 1948) was a German artist who worked in several genres and media, including dadaism, constructivism, surrealism, poetry, sound, painting, sculpture, graphic design, typography, and what came to be known as installation art. He is most famous for his collages, called Merz Pictures.
When the political situation in Germany deteriorated in the 1930s, Schwitters's work was included in the Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition organised by the Nazi party from 1933. He lost his contract with Hanover City Council in 1934 and his work in German museums was confiscated and publicly ridiculed in 1935. The situation became perilous and on 2 January 1937, to avoid an "interview" with the Gestapo, he escaped to Norway to be with his son Ernst. Following the Nazi invasion of Norway, he fled, again, Scotland with his son and daughter-in-law. Now classed as an 'enemy alien', he was moved between internment camps in Scotland and England until in July 1940 he was sent to the Hutchinson Camp in the Isle of Man. It was known as "the artists' camp" full of artists, writers, university professors and other intellectuals. In this environment, Schwitters was popular as a character, a raconteur and as an artist. He was soon provided studio space and took on students, many of whom would later become significant artists in their own right. After the war he spent the rest of his life in the Lake District in north-western England.
