Hatched charcoal shapes fracture into circles and arcs

A charcoal drawing of interlocking angular and curved forms, shaded with dense directional strokes. Hard diagonals cut across the upper half, where a circle is drawn in outline and shaded down one side. Below it a broad curve rises through the centre, flanked by dome-topped forms and steep hatched wedges that step toward the lower edge. The blacks are deep and the paper is left bare in the open planes. Entirely abstract, worked in black on cream.

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.