Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters was born in Hanover, Germany, on the 20th of June 1887, he was a painter, sculptor and designer working in genres such as Dada, Constructism, Surrealism, Graphic design and typography, however he is most famous for his collages, which he named him self Merz.
He was the only child of Edward and Henriette Schwitters, they were a wealthy family however as a child Kurt was described as being a 'loner'
The family moved to Waldstrasse in 1901 which would also be the future site of the Merzbau, that same year he suffered his first epileptic seizure, a condition that would hold him back from serving in world war I, between 1908 and 1909 he studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule (school of arts and crafts) in Hanover, where he had his first exhibition in 1911, he later studied at the "Kunstakademie" in Dresden until 1915, along-side contemporary artist Otto Dix and George Grosz, however he appears to have not known of their work, Schwitters long academic education being a student of Carl Bantzer, who was greatly inspired by Frans Hals had seemed to prepare Schwitters for a conventional painters career, and his early works seem to show very little influence by the modern age, After studying in Dresden Schwitters returned to Hanover and was able to start his art career as a post impressionist
On October the 5th, 1915 Schwitters married his cousin Helma Fischer, the following September they had their first son Gerd, who died within a week of birth, they had their second son Ernst on the 16th of November 1918, he was very close to his father for his whole life.
For the final year and a half of the war he was working as a technical draftsman in a factory near Hanover, In 1917 he was moved into the 73rd Hanoverian Regiment, however 3 months later he was excused from service as he was seen as unfit, due to his experience as a draftsman he had said himself that it had influenced his later work, 'using the machines as metaphors of human activity', he had quoted "In the war I discovered my love for the wheel and recognized that machines are abstractions of the human spirit", although in as the first world war progressed his work had seemed to become darker, slowly developing an expressionist tone, due to Germany's economic, political and military collapse in 1918, Schwitters art made a dramatic change as a result of this, he had said "In the war, things were in terrible turmoil. What I had learned at the academy was of no use to me and theuseful new ideas were still unready, Everything had broken down and new things had to be made out of the fragments; and this is Merz. It was like a revolution within me, not as it was, but as it should have been."
He came into contact with the Dada Movement in the autumn of 1918 in Berlin, where the first of his abstract collages began to appear which were notably influenced by the work of Hans Arp, this is where Schwitters began to call his collages 'Merzbilder', however he was rejected from joining the Dada movement in late 1918/early 1919 due to his associations with Der Strum and Expressionism.
In the August of 1919 Schwitters published a mock-romantic poem 'An Anna Blume', it was very successful in Germany and from this point onwards he called his one-man movement 'Merz' which comes from the word 'Kommerz' which had a number of meanings for Schwitters, the most frequently used ones 'Refuse' or 'Rejects', hence the use of found materials on streets or in parks.
As an entrepreneur he traveled across Europe, earning himself a reputation as a amazing business man
In 1924 Kurt set up his own advertising and design agency in Hannover, theMerz-Werbezentrale. Some of his accounts being Wagner, makers of Pelikan inks and of Bahlsen biscuits. He showed new forms of typography and “was the guiding light of an association of modernist advertising agents”. In 1927, him and friedrich Vordemberge-gildewart forming a group known as ‘die abstrakten hannover’ (The abstract Hanover)
One of Schwitters largest pieces of work was in fact his studio in his family home, which he called the merzabau, he began to working on it in 1923 and gradually over time it grew into an ever changing abstract walk in collage which was made out of grottoes, columns, found objects, and sculptures so instead of just being a studio it was more like a work of art, however the merzabau was left unfinished when Schwitters left Germany to escape the threat of Nazi Germany in December 1936, but in 1943 while Schwitters was still away in Norway the Merzabau was destroyed in a bombing raid, although there are photographs which were taken by Wihelm Redemann in 1933 but the photographs only show what the Merzabau would have looked like at that particular point in time as it was not a static piece of art.
whilst he was not allowed in Germany Schwitters began to work on a second Merzbau in 1937 in Lysaker near Oslo, but soon after the Nazis invaded and he abandoned it and yet again the Merzbau was destroyed, this time by a fire in 1951.
He arrived in Isle of Man at Hutchinson Camp on July 17th 1940 and was quickly equipt with studio space where he began to take on students, many of them would go on to become significant artists, the camp was known as the "artist camp" consisting of many artists, writers, university professors and other intellectuals
Schwitters granted his freedom on 21 November 1941, he moved to London where he meet many artists such as Naum Gabo, László Moholy-Nagy and Ben Nicholson. He had his first solo exhibition in December 1944 however it did not go very well as only one out of forty of his works were bought.
He was left temporarily paralyzed on one side of his body after suffering from his first stroke in 1944, he finally came to the decision to recreate the Merzbau in 1947 at a barn at Cylinders Farm in Elterwater, he soon found out that Museum of Modern Art in new York had awarded him £1000 so that he would be able to repair or recreate his Merzbau's in Germany and Norway, but he used these funds to create the 'Merzbarn' which he worked on daily.
A day before his death on January the 7th 1948 he finally received his British citizenship, but died the next day from pulmonary edema and myocarditis.
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