Kurt Schwitters

Ernst Schwitters, Lysaker (the artist's son, acquired in 1948)
Marlborough Gallery, London
Galerie Gmurzynska, Cologne (acquired in 1979)
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1979

Stockholm, Konstsalongen Samlaren, Kurt MERZ Schwitters. 1887-1948. Retrospektivt, 1962, no. 138
London, Marlborough Fine Art, Schwitters, 1963, no. 210
Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Kurt Schwitters. 1887-1948. Schilderijen, collages, sculpturen, tekeningen, 1964, no. 210 
Milan, Toninelli Arte Moderna, Schwitters. Mostra restrospettiva, 1964, no. 87
London, Marlborough Fine Art & New York, Marlborough Gallery, Kurt Schwitters, 1972-73, no. 65, illustrated in the catalogue
Edinburgh, New 57 Gallery, Kurt Schwitters, 1976, no. 23
Cologne, Galerie Gmurzynska, Kurt Schwitters, 1978, no. 67, illustrated in the catalogue
Cologne, Museum Ludwig Köln, Kurt Schwitters, Die späten Werke, 1985, no. 29, illustrated in the catalogue

Kurt Schwitters. 1887-1848 (exhibition catalogue), Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne, 1963, no. 210
Klaus Stadtmüller (ed.), Schwitters in Norwegen. Arbeiten, Dokumente, Ansichten, Hanover, 1997, illustrated p. 181
Karin Orchard & Isabel Schulz, Kurt Schwitters, Catalogue raisonné, Ostfildern-Ruit, 2000, vol. III, no. 2482, illustrated p. 168

The genius of Schwitters was his concept of Merz as an all-embracing technique; far beyond the flat cubist collages of Picasso and Braque, it was an approach which encompassed painting, collage, sculpture, architecture, poetry, and even typography. The present relief is defiantly sculptural, with curvilinear wooden pieces and a large central block lending a sense of deep relief to the overall composition. Colour, too, is triumphant: a washed out white background allows for primary blues, reds and oranges of a similar consistency to gently shimmer through. Though this work was assembled in 1939, its inspiration lies in Schwitters’ discovery of constructivism over a decade earlier. This turn from Dada to Constructivism was not unique: many Dada artists moved in the same direction as the influence of Vladimir Tatlin and De Stijl artists began to reach Berlin.

Whilst these new ideas certainly had a profound effect on Schwitters, he remained an individual with an eye to the future. In a letter of 1928, he said: ‘Taken as a whole, the new art leads to an ever-increasing simplification of form, colour, and line, culminating in Mondrian’s current works. For Mondrian, form in the old sense no longer exists. All forms are rectangular, all lines are vertical or horizontal…Should it become possible once more to turn away from limitation to variety, we could only welcome the resulting enrichment’ (quoted in W. Schmalenbach, Kurt Schwitters, London, 1970, p. 142). Bild N / Weihnachtsbild mit großem N was executed during Schwitters’ time in Norway, over 10 years after this observation of his. Judging by the present assemblage, he has clearly absorbed his own prediction; this is a forceful but organic composition, entirely abstract but not attached to or tied down by any particular set of rules. Living in self-imposed exile, playing the part of perennial outsider, Schwitters proves himself here as one of the most defiantly original artists of the first half of the twentieth century.