Merz collage in beige and gold

Torn and cut paper, pasted down in layers, keyed throughout to beige, gold and yellow. Schwitters called this Merz, and the method was simple: take the printed matter that passes through a day — tickets, packaging, scraps of type — and compose with it as a painter composes with pigment. What results is abstract, and meant to be read as shape and colour rather than as anything represented. The pieces sit close, though the ground still shows through between them.

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.