Kurt Schwitters

Kurt Schwitters was a German artist and writer whose practice crossed collage, painting, sculpture, poetry, typography, and architecture. In 1918 he began calling that practice Merz, a word cut from Kommerz. The name distinguished his work while giving one identity to pictures, poems, publications, and environments made by connecting materials that conventional culture kept apart.

In Merz Picture 32 A. The Cherry Picture, made in 1921, street scraps from Hanover—printed paper, cloth, wood, metal, cork, and commercial labels—are pasted or nailed onto a painted board. The parts are discarded, but the composition is exact. His Merzbau extended the same principle into the rooms of his Hanover home, making collage architectural and walk-in.

Schwitters left Germany for Norway in 1937 as Nazi persecution intensified and later reached Britain, where he died in 1948. The Sprengel Museum Hannover preserves his archive, including material connected with Merz publications, poetry, design, and the Merzbau.