Kurt Schwitters(1887-1948)

After studying at both the School of Applied Art and the Royal Academy of Art in Germany, Kurt Schwitters experimented with abstract and expressionist painting before becoming involved with the Dada movement, an artistic philosophy based primarily on incongruity, absurdism, and nonsense. Although he associated with the Dadaists and his works shared many similarities to theirs, Schwitters preferred to refer to his own artistic efforts under the separate title "Merz"--a meaningless word Schwitters derived by taking the middle syllable from the German word "kommerzbank" ("commercial bank"). Schwitters was best known for his collages composed of everyday objects, and for his poems based on sounds rather than meanings ("An Anna Blume," "Die Ursonate"). In 1937, Kurt Schwitters emigrated to Norway to escape Nazi rule. After the outbreak of World War II, he again fled the Nazis by escaping to England, where he lived out the rest of his days. Despite being plagued by numerous health problems in his later years (a stroke, a cerebral hemorrhage, a broken leg), Kurt Schwitters continued to produce "Merz" artworks until his death in 1948.