Kurt Schwitters
1887-1948
Mz 309 Alma Gassert
1921
9 5/8 x 7 5/8 inches (244 x 195 mm)
Collage of cut and torn printed and colored papers, cut fabric, with graphite, pen and black ink, and black fabricated chalk on blue paper adhered to original paperboard window mat.
2017.238
Thaw Collection.
Notes
In the months following World War I, Schwitters began making art from detritus and material found in the streets. In carefully composed collages of discarded papers, often from printed matter, he sought poetry in the leftovers of modern life. He used the term Merz to describe his works, from the German Kommerz (commerce) partly visible on a piece of paper in one of his first assemblages. To signal the artistic nature of his enterprise, Schwitters framed his collages with a mat and gave them a title and an opus number. The name Alma Gassert appears on a telegram included in this collage.
Inscriptions/Markings
Inscribed in black ink on mat, at lower left, Mz 309 / Alma Gassert, and at lower right, K. Schwitters. 1921. / B; inscribed in graphite, on the back, Mz 309.
Artist
Classification
Century Drawings
Catalog link
Department