Illustration for "Das Kestnerbuch"

1919

German, 1887-1948

Although Kurt Schwitters is generally associated with the German Dada movement, his work was more lyrical and poetic, less concerned with momentous current events in Berlin and Weimar. Yet in 1919, even the apolitical Schwitters was affected by the end of the war and the ensuing revolution that swept the country, quitting his job as an ironworker to become a full-time artist. "Everything had broken down," he later recalled, "new things had to be made from fragments," a principle from which his innovative Merzbild collages were born that winter of 1918-19 utilizing waste materials that he found in the street, and thus reclaiming society's detritus for use in art.

The woodcut print made for Das Kestnerbuch, the forms suggestive of his previous experiences among the machines in the Wülfell ironworks, shows Schwitters in a period of transition but still subscribing to the expressionism that many German artists saw as an affirmation of the new spirit. Hanging Down, made in England during the final year of his life, is one of Schwitters' last works. It bespeaks the maturity and calm tone of an artist who maintained his artistic principles despite persecution by the Nazis-his work was included in their notorious "Degenerate Art" exhibition in 1937-and later, surveillance by the British.

Woodcut

7 7/8 x 4 3/4 in., image size

10 1/8 x 7 1/4 in., sheet size

Gift of the Estate of Mark Tobey

87.127

Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "International Abstraction: Making Painting Real", May 2, 2003 - February 29, 2004

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

Learn more about Equity at SAM