A Merz sheet of overstamped purple type and grey script

A composition made entirely from a printer's own advertising material. Broad orange rules frame the sheet at the top and left, a column of dense German catalogue text runs sideways up the right, and a band of one brand name, stamped over and over in purple, fills the lower edge. Two oversized words in grey blackletter sweep across the middle, one of them printed twice and slipping out of register. Nothing here is drawn — the design is set, stamped and overprinted.

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.