In Issue Five of Kolaj, we look at new scholarship into the last eight years of the life of German collage artist Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948). In 2013, Schwitters received two major retrospectives that covered the 1940-1948 period of his life. “Schwitters in Britain” at Tate Britain (30 January-12 May 2013) and “Schwitters in England” at the Sprengel Museum Hannover (2 June-25 August 2013) represent an important collaboration between these two institutions, shedding new light on Schwitters’ late work.
Every great artist becomes the subject of a certain amount of mythology. The stories of those who knew the artist personally become more elaborate through their retelling. Galleries and collectors embellish histories. Often, hardship, when it is overcome, is recast as triumphant struggle or as epic defeat when it is not. As time passes, the reality of an artist’s life, the mundane, day-to-day struggle of work making and business conducting and hard fighting for new ideas or a sense of direction is glossed over by a fantasy of leisure, epiphany, and reward. So it is refreshing when new scholarship rises from the ashes of mythology. It is even more refreshing when the subject is one so near to the hearts of those who follow collage. This is the case of Kurt Schwitters.
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Image (top):
C 21 John Bull
by Kurt Schwitters
7.7″x6.6″ (image); 13″x10″ (mat)
gouache, cloth, paper tips, paper, and collage on paper
1946 and 1947
Kurt and Ernst Schwitters Foundation, Hannover
Photo: Kurt Schwitters Archive at the Sprengel Museum Hannover
Photographer: Aline Gwose / Michael Herling, Sprengel Museum Hannover
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2013
Image (bottom):
Green over yellow.
by Kurt Schwitters
collage, tracing paper, paper on paper
1947
Kurt and Ernst Schwitters Foundation, on loan to the Sprengel Museum Hannover
Photo: Kurt Schwitters Archive at the Sprengel Museum Hannover
Photographer: Aline Gwose / Michael Herling, Sprengel Museum Hannover
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2013