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Kurt Schwitters. One Man Merz

Armitt Museum, Ambleside features Kurt Schwitters

Schwitters Ambleside Merzbarn, now on display at Newcastle University

Kurt Schwitters Artist Merz Armitt Museum Ambleside Lake District UK

A real surprise in Ambleside is the discovery that the unique master of collage, Kurt Schwitters, lived in Ambleside later in his life. The Armitt Museum in Ambleside pays due homage to this renowned artist, and several of his works are displayed here. Well worth checking out!

Kurt Schwitters was certainly absorbed by Cubism, Constructivism, Dadaism and to some extent surrealism, but chose his own way which he called 'Merz', something cast-off like junk where items of the everyday were appropriated and evolved from the banal to art. A prophetic journey which influenced the shape of 20th century art.

Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) in Ambleside. One Man Merz and pushing to extreme abstraction

Schwitters, commenting on his Merz journey, said, Because the medium is unimportant, I take any material whatsoever if the picture demands it I call the world view from which this mode of artistic creation arose 'Merz'. The meaning of the concept 'Merz' changes with the change in the insight of those who continue to work with it. During his own lifetime Schwitters did not receive the acclaim and attention deserved, such is the fate of visionaries who are touched by their own period, yet ahead of it and who somehow take their own path ahead of their contemporaries.

A dabbler who resisted any attempt to be pigeonholed, he changed the very concept of sculpture with his walk-in Merzbaus which surrounded and enveloped the viewer. There were three in all, The Merzbause in Hanover, which Schwitters began about 1920 which was tragically destroyed in 1943 during an Allied Bombing raid, then Lysaker, Haus am Bakken in Oslo, in Norway began during Schwitters exile in Norway in 1937. This was again tragically destroyed in 1951 by fire.

Finally Elterwater, the barn near Ambleside which he began in 1947 and which remained unfinished. Schwitters wanted his Elterwater Merzbarn left intact in it's Ambleside home, however it had to be moved in the early 1960s to Newcastle University. The alternative was deterioration against the Lakes elements! The ultimate betrayal in Schwitters' mind.

Kurt Schwitters Style - Merzbarn

Always concerned with the importance of culture and history, Schwitters explored in his work both ethical and moral values. He was branded a degenerate by the National Socialist Party under Hitler, and his works of art were hung alongside paintings by 'lunatics'. Schwitters fled Nazi persecution and occupation twice, initially in 1937 he fled to Norway then as the Nazis pushed into Norway, in 1940 he fled to Britain. Russell Mills alludes to the fact that Schwitters is widely acclaimed today for his 'life changing' collages, - bold dynamics drawing in materials, particularly urban materials from the every day.

These abstract collages of print from newspapers, comics, and photographs are compelling as they set you off on plots and stories in all directions. And his Merzbarn in Cumbria fuses everyday tools and items found in the surrounding countryside into a barn wall. A Romantic it seems at heart, is it surprising that Schwitters seemed to find himself in the Lake District. His portraits and landscapes of Lake District Landscapes and people, as Mills suggests, demonstrate a warmth for the area and the people. It is a ridiculous situation that Schwitters is now acknowledged internationally as a world class and visionary artist who influenced the shape of 20th century art and culture, and yet in the Lake District his name is rarely mentioned.

The lack of a blue plaque on the Elterwater Barn is frankly pathetic. Schwitters simply has so much to teach us, and ranks up there with Ruskin and Wordsworth.

His words in 1931 were indeed prophetic, I know that I am an important factor in the development of art and will remain important for all time. I say this with such emphasis, so that later on people will not say: 'The poor man had no idea how important he was. No, I am not stupid and I am not shy either. I know very well that for me and all the other important personalities of the abstract movement the great time is to come when we will influence a generation, only I fear I will not experience it personally.

Kurt Schwitters Bio

The Third Reich had deemed Schwitters new order of Merz undesirable, and from the late 1930s Schwitters faced a life of displacement as a refugee with his son Ernst, first in Norway then in the Lake District in England. In Lysaker near Oslo he became so depressed he attempted suicide.

His son encouraged him to start work on another Merzbarn, but in 1940 as the Germans encroached into Norway he was forced to move again, and once in England was directly interned in various camps in Britain, finally ending up in one on the Isle of Man. Towards the end of the war more painful news was to arrive by telegram to Schwitters, he wrote During my exhibition, I received a telegram notifying me that Helma had died; she suffered from cancer as I later heard. That was my best friend for all time gone, leaving me and Ernst. I also learned that my house and Merzbau in Hanover had been destroyed.

There were only a few pictures left in Basle and what I had taken over to Lysaker. Around this time he suffered a stroke which paralysed him down one side of his body for a short time. He loved the Lake District, and thought it the best part of England, despite being somewhat misunderstood by locals.

His time and his work in Ambleside needs to be recognised and more prolifically acknowledged. The Armitt Museum in Ambleside is currently struggling to raise funds to keep 'Wood on Wood' (1947) in Ambleside. The Tate Modern in London, and in Liverpool have a generous collection of Schwitters' work. See the Tate web link to view some of Schwitters' Work online. See Schwitters' The Merzbarn Wall (1947-48) at the Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University.

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