Kurt Schwitters

"During the war everything was in a state of ferment. The abilities and skills which I had brought with me from the academy were of no use whatsoever; and all around me people were fighting about stupid things which I myself couldn't have cared less about…and then, all of a sudden, the glorious revolution began. I don't think much of such revolutions, for people must be ready for them. It's like apples being shaken to the ground by the wind before they've time to ripen, such a shame. But it put an end to that enormous swindle which people call war. I quit my job without notice and then things really got moving. The turmoil had only just begun. At last I felt free, and I gave vent to my jubilation in a loud outburst. Not being wasteful, I took everything with me that I could find, for we were now an impoverished country. One can also shout with junk—and this I did, nailing and gluing it together."

Kurt Schwitters, quoted by essayist Karin Orchard in Schwitters in Norway.

Hero of Dada, Constructivist virtuoso, patron saint of collage, sound poetry and installation art, Schwitters made his greatest impact in the postwar era--while he himself was living in relative seclusion in the north of England--influencing American Pop art (especially Robert Rauschenberg's Combines), Fluxus and assemblage art throughout Europe and America; artists as different as Damien Hirst and Ed Ruscha cite him as an influence.

       

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PPPPPP: POEMS PERFORMANCES PIECES PROSES PLAYS POETICS
EXACT CHANGE
U.S. $17.95 | CAN $17.95
ISBN: 9781878972354 | TRADE
PUB DATE: 9/30/2010 | In stock

KURT SCHWITTERS: A JOURNEY THROUGH ART
HATJE CANTZ
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ISBN: 9783775725118 | TRADE
PUB DATE: 5/31/2011 | In stock

KURT SCHWITTERS: CATALOGUE RAISONNé VOLUME 3 1937-1948
HATJE CANTZ PUBLISHERS
U.S. $300.00 | CAN $300
ISBN: 9783775709897 | SDNR30
PUB DATE: 11/15/2005 | Awaiting stock

KURT SCHWITTERS: CATALOGUE RAISONNé
HATJE CANTZ PUBLISHERS
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ISBN: 9783775709880 | TRADE
PUB DATE: 5/2/2003 | In stock

      

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SCHWITTERS IN NORWAY
HATJE CANTZ
U.S. $45.00 | CAN $45
ISBN: 9783775724203 | TRADE
PUB DATE: 5/31/2010 | Not available

KURT SCHWITTERS: CATALOGUE RAISONNE
HATJE CANTZ PUBLISHERS
U.S. $300.00 | CAN $300
ISBN: 9783775709262 | TRADE
PUB DATE: 6/2/2001 | Not available

KURT SCHWITTERS
NAI PUBLISHERS/STEDELIJK MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM
U.S. $35.00 | CAN $35
ISBN: 9789056621582 | TRADE
PUB DATE: 6/2/2000 | Not available

ARTBOOK CURATED LIBRARY

A DADA LIBRARY

A selection of forthcoming, new, and backlist titles on Dada, featuring such key figures as Key figures include Hans (or Jean) Arp, Erwin Blumenfeld, Kurt Schwitters, Hannah Höch, Max Ernst, Francis Picabia, Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp.

Kurt Schwitters

In the 1930s, anyone traveling to Djupvasshytta in Norway might have run into the improbable figure of Kurt Schwitters, selling his landscapes and portraits to visiting tourists. Schwitters (1887–1948) had discovered the beauty of Norway on his first trip there in 1929, subsequently holidaying in the northwestern part of the country. In January 1937, the artist followed his son Ernst into exile, and constructed his second Merzbau, the Haus am Bakken (House on the Slope), near Oslo, where he remained until the Germans moved in to occupy the country in April 1940. Schwitters in Norway is the first book to examine the stylistically looser and more colorful collages and assemblages, with their pronounced use of natural materials such as stone, driftwood and feathers, as well as the abstract and landscape paintings, from this particularly productive period of the artist's life. The featured image is "Fog in Djupvasshytta," 1937, from Schwitters in Norway.

PPPPPP: Poems Performances Pieces Proses Plays Poetics

By Kurt Schwitters. Edited and translated by Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris.
Published by Exact Change

Kurt Schwitters' stated goal was to "erase the boundaries between the arts." This collection, culled from the five-volume German edition of Schwitters' writings, introduces the total work of art that is Merz through Schwitters' words. Included is the complete text for the "Ursonate," Schwitters' legendary and lengthy epic of sound poetry, which, as poets, editors and translators Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris comment, "is to sound poetry what Joyce's Ulysses is to the twentieth-century novel."

PPPPPP: POEMS PERFORMANCES PIECES PROSES PLAYS POETICS
$17.95 | In Stock: Order now or contact your local bookstore or museum shop.

Kurt Schwitters: A Journey Through Art

Text by Roger Cardinal. Gwendolen Webster.
Published by Hatje Cantz

The influence of Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) permeates the art, literature and music of the past century as profoundly as any of his contemporaries. Hero of Dada, Constructivist virtuoso, patron saint of collage, sound poetry and installation art, Schwitters made his greatest impact in the postwar era--while he himself was living in relative seclusion in the north of England--influencing American Pop art (especially Robert Rauschenberg's Combines), Fluxus and assemblage art throughout Europe and America; artists as different as Damien Hirst and Ed Ruscha cite him as an influence. This volume is the first serious broad survey of Schwitters' work in 25 years, and attests to his omnipresent influence today. It draws on recent research into the Merzbau interiors, and gathers all aspects of his output, from collage to typography and architecture, into one glorious testimonial to Schwitters' libidinously prolific oeuvre. With texts by British art historian Roger Cardinal and Schwitters scholar Gwendolen Webster, this volume presents a new Schwitters for our times.

KURT SCHWITTERS: A JOURNEY THROUGH ART
$60.00 | In Stock: Order now or contact your local bookstore or museum shop.

Kurt Schwitters: Catalogue Raisonné

Volume 2 1923-1936

Artwork by Kurt Schwitters. Edited by Karin Orchard, Isabel Schulz, Inka Schube.
Published by Hatje Cantz Publishers

There is scarcely an artist working today, provided they use materials other than paint, who does not refer to Kurt Schwitters in some way. In his bold and wide-ranging experiments, his prodigious collages and ground-breaking environments, he can be seen as the grandfather of Pop art, happenings, concept art, Fluxus, multimedia art, and even postmodernism--yet only certain parts of his immensely varied pictorial work have been thoroughly investigated. From the Dadaist collages to the final, partial incarnation of the “Merzbau” in the Lake District of England, Schwitters's oeuvre is here documented and properly acknowledged for the first time in a three-volume catalogue raisonné, of which this is the second installment. More than 4,000 works produced between 1905 and 1948, among them numerous previously unpublished, destroyed and lost pictures and paintings, are presented in this authoritative compendium, following worldwide research and a complete viewing of his artistic estate. The artist's works are ordered chronologically and then according to genre, and illustrated in black and white; select representative works appear in color. This second volume covers the years from 1923 to 1936, a period in which Schwitters added steadily to his Hanover Merzbau and in which his work reflected his struggle with international Constructivism. The volume ends with his 1937 flight from Germany. This publication is edited by the Sprengel Museum, Hanover, with the help of Karin Orchard and Isabel Schulz on behalf of the Norddeutsche Landesbank and the Stadtsparkasse Hanover.
Also Available:
Kurt Schwitters Catalogue Raisonné: Volume I 1905-1922
Hbk, 10 x 12 in. / 552 pgs / 150 color and 950 b&w
ISBN: 30-7757-0926-6 $250
Hatje Cantz Publishers
Kurt Schwitters Catalogue Raisonné: Volume 3 1937-1948
Hatje Cantz Publishers

KURT SCHWITTERS: CATALOGUE RAISONNé
$300.00 | In Stock: Order now or contact your local bookstore or museum shop.