Cut and layered paper in brown and pink

Schwitters made his Merz pictures out of what everyone else threw away — tram tickets, wrappers, labels, envelopes, any printed paper that came to hand. Here that material is torn and cut and pasted into overlapping planes, worked almost entirely in brown, pink and gray. He is not depicting anything. The composition is built from the edges where one scrap crosses another, and from the way age has toned the paper since. The sheet is densely packed, one fragment running straight into the next. The overall key is deep.

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.