A red cockerel among heavy black display type

A cockerel stands at the left in flat vermilion, drawn as a silhouette with a jagged comb, an open beak and a fan of tail feathers, one thin black line running through it at an angle. Two words in very heavy black sans-serif are set large across the sheet, one above the cockerel and one below, with smaller type crowding beneath the second. Thin red rules box off an area at the lower middle, and a small child's face is drawn in fine pen at the right. The publisher's name runs vertically up the left edge.

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.