A Merz collage keyed to beige and gray

Salvaged printed paper, pasted in overlapping layers and held to beige, gray and gold. Schwitters worked this way for most of his life, treating discarded material as the raw stuff of composition. Time has done the rest: the papers have yellowed and the inks softened, so the picture now has a unity it cannot have had when it was new. The sheet is densely packed, one fragment running straight into the next.

Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948) was a German artist who built an entire practice from what other people threw away. From 1919 he gave the name Merz to his collages and assemblages, composing tram tickets, wrappers, printed scraps and worn paper into taut abstract structures, and extending the idea into poetry, typography and the architectural Merzbau in his Hanover house. Close to Dada without ever formally joining it, he was condemned as degenerate by the Nazi regime and fled in 1937 to Norway and then to Britain, where he died in Kendal. His work is held by the Museum of Modern Art, Tate and the Sprengel Museum Hannover.

Printed as a museum-grade giclée on Hahnemühle fine art paper using 12-ink archival pigment printing. Available handframed in FSC-certified wood with optional float glass, or unframed. Ships worldwide with free delivery to 30+ countries.