Kurt Schwitters is generally acknowledged as the twentieth century's greatest master of collage.

Just as collage is essentially the medium of irony, so Schwitters' life is characterized by paradox and enigma. Born in ano!er, the only child of affluent parents, he was a loner in his youth, plagued by epileptic attacks, intro!erted and insecure, and as a student at the "resden #cademy of #rt he pro!ed as apt as he was unimaginati!e. #lthough his contact with $xpressionist artists in anno!er in %&%' ga!e him more confidence to de!elop his own style, e!en his most impressi!e works (such as )ountain *ra!eyard+ were little more than imitations of his contemporaries. # ma,or challenge came in %&%- with the in!itation to exhibit at erwarth .alden's notorious Sturm gallery in Berlin, for .alden had contacts with most progressi!e $uropean artists, including the /urich "ada group. Schwitters found further stimulus in the acti!ities of the re!olutionary Berlin "adaists. (0he generally accepted story that Schwitters was re,ected by Berlin "ada is, howe!er, not true.+ But it was ans #rp, himself a pioneer of collage, who first persuaded Schwitters to abandon his sterile academic techni1ues. Schwitters' first known collage, ansi, is strongly reminiscent of #rp's work, and soon afterwards he began making assemblages from scraps of refuse, including one he called the )erz picture. Subse1uently he referred to all his work as )erz. # Sturm exhibition of his new style in mid2%&%&, which showed his abstract )erz works and some whimsical '"ada drawings' (such as 0he eart goes from Sugar to 3offee+ caused a furore among the critics, as did his '#nna Blume' poem published in the same year. Schwitters thri!ed on public opposition, and from %&%& to %&45 he created a succession of )erz pictures which are now seen as his greatest contribution to twentieth century art. 0hese pictures carry an inner tension that deri!es from the sensiti!e ,uxtaposition of abstraction and realism, aesthetics and rubbish, art and life, and their innate dynamism is one of the characteristics of )erz. Schwitters stands alone in the consummate mastery of colour, the delicate balance of content and form and the intricate interplay of coarse and filigree displayed in )erzbild 6ossfett7 the almost minimalist 6e!ol!ing, using the barest of materials, con!eys a mysterious shadowy rotating cosmos extending far beyond the bounds of the frame8 in 3onstruction for 9oble :adies, the precarious e1uilibrium of the disparate elements is stabilised only by the side2on portrait of Schwitters' angelic and long2suffering wife elma. Schwitters' re!olution came late 2 he was 54 at the time of the first )erz exhibition 2 but )erz changed his life radically. e suddenly found himself at the forefront of contemporary art and 1uickly allied himself with the a!ant2garde, including !arious $uropean "ada groups, the Bauhaus (Schlemmer, Klee, Kandinsky, ;eininger, *ropius+ and the new generation of 3ontructi!ists from $astern $urope and the 9etherlands (:issitsky, )oholy29agy, 0heo !an "oesburg+. By now his fantasy knew no bounds and o!er the next decade he undertook radical experiments in such fields as abstract drama and poetry, cabaret, typography, multimedia art, body painting, music, photography and architecture. e published a )erz magazine which appeared irregularly from %&45254 and founded what was to become a successful ad!ertising agency in %&4<.

Schwitters was a master of subtle colour and precarious balance, and during the twenties the influence of 3onstructi!ism, with its clinical reliance on primary colour and clear geometrical forms, was not always ad!antageous to his work. #lthough a 1uasi2 minimalist approach came naturally to him (he experimented with it early, in pictures like 3oloured S1uares+, he introduced 3onstructi!ist ideas more rigorously into his work after %&4<. 0he composition of the )erz pictures becomes more clear2cut, the textures more uniform, the indi!idual elements larger and simpler. But luckily he ne!er abandoned the principles of )erz, as can be seen from the splendid 6elief with 3ross and Sphere and 3icero, where the effects of stark 3onstructi!ist colours and tight composition are brilliantly offset by sharp cur!es and shadows and Schwitters' belo!ed scraps of battered )erz refuse. #n e1ually startling example is Small Seaman's ome (made in olland, where Schwitters would comb the beaches for )erz finds during his summer holidays+. ;or thirteen years (%&4525'+ he also worked on an extraordinary construction that came to be known as the )erzbau7 it was what we would now call an $n!ironment and e!entually spread to eight rooms of his house in anno!er. =ts original name was the '3athedral of $rotic )isery' and its contents were as shocking as anything produced by radical young artists today. .ith the rise of 9ational Socialism in *ermany after %&4&, Schwitters found himself in serious difficulties. #s the artistic community emigrated or went into hiding, so Schwitters was robbed of much of the impetus that was crucial to his art. 0he death of his father and of 0heo !an "oesburg in %&5% mark the start of a new phase of his work, as Schwitters himself makes clear in '9ew )erz >icture', with its contemplati!e mood and coarse dabs of colour. 0he sombre restraint of >ino #ntoni is likewise in sharp contrast to the works of the exuberant early )erz period. Schwitters kept a low profile during the 0hird 6eich and emigrated to 9orway in January %&5?, for reasons that ha!e ne!er been satisfactorily explained. But the *estapo were certainly on his trail, and in summer %&5? his pictures were displayed at the infamous '$ntartete Kunst' exhibition in )unich. 3learly his return to *ermany was blocked for e!er. "epressed at abandoning the anno!er )erzbau to an uncertain fate, Schwitters completed a similar construction in @slo, but in %&<A 9azi troops in!aded 9orway and he was forced to flee for his life. e finally landed in $ngland, where he was interned until 9o!ember %&<%. Bet the )erz pictures of this turbulent period gi!e little indication of the fact that Schwitters suffered from poor health and time and again found himself in life2 threatening situations. )erzbild #lf is often cited as an example of his brief interest in Surrealism8 it is difficult to imagine that Spring "oor, the superb *lass ;lower and )erzbild with 6ainbow, with their sparks of light and swinging rhythms, were created at a time of increasing isolation and despair for the artist. #fter release from internment, Schwitters li!ed until %&<C in bombed2out :ondon, where the unfamiliar surroundings ga!e him fresh inspiration for )erz pictures. e made light of his heap of problems in "ifficult, echoed the dismal fabric of wartime Britain and the

blows of fate in the ironically2named ea!y 6elief, reworked the great masters in inimitable tongue2in2cheek )erz fashion in "ie heilige 9acht and recalled the dark days of the 9azi regime in the sinister black shapes and blood2red background of itler *ang (named after a film+. e was fascinated by the comics sent in letters from compatriots in the DS# and used them in his famous ;or Kate, a collage now regarded as a forerunner of >op #rt. =n %&<C he mo!ed with his young companion, $dith 0homas, to #mbleside in the $nglish :ake "istrict, where, financed by the )useum of )odern #rt in 9ew Bork, he started on a new )erzbau that came to be known as the )erz barn. #t his death he had completed only one wall, now to be found in 9ewcastle Dni!ersity. Sadly, no other of Schwitters extraordinary )erzbau constructions ha!e sur!i!ed. e died at the age of sixty, po!erty2 stricken and neglected, but in the knowledge that his work would one day be recognized as that of a genius. #s he saw, the language of )erz now finds common acceptance and today there is scarcely an artist working with materials other than paint who does not refer to Schwitters in some way. =n his bold and wide2ranging experiments he can be seen as the grandfather of >op #rt, appenings, 3oncept #rt, ;luxus, multimedia art and post2 modernism. 0hrough all the tribulations of his life, Schwitters stood his ground with his undogmatic, non2Elitist and democratic creation of )erz, which con,ured up its own magic from the re,ected and the discarded8 small wonder that the 9azis found Schwitters' art sub!ersi!e and tried to eradicate it. #nd in our own age of increasing extremism, his message is as !alid as it e!er was.