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Teil aus dem Merzbau (Section of Kurt Schwitters' Merzbau)

Teil aus dem Merzbau (Section of Kurt Schwitters' Merzbau)

(German, 1892–1953)
(German, 1887–1948)
1933
Medium/TechniquePhotograph, gelatin silver print
DimensionsSheet: 24.1 x 17.8 cm (9 1/2 x 7 in.)
Image: 22.8 x 17.2 cm (9 x 6 3/4 in.)
Credit LineFrederick Brown Fund, Francis Welch Fund, Barbara M. Marshall Fund, Samuel Putnam Avery Fund, and Frank M. and Mary T. B. Ferrin Fund.
Accession number2013.1665
On View
Not on view
ClassificationsPhotographs
Description
Schwitters created his “Merzbau”—an evolving construct of geometric forms with which he filled his apartment in Hannover, Germany—between 1923 and 1937. “Merz” was the term he invented to define his collage-like approach to making art, and the apartment offered an opportunity to experience his ideas fully in te round. After Schwitters fled Germany, due to Nazi persecution, he fashioned similar installations in later residences, but it was the original “Merzbau” that attained mythic status.
InscriptionsSigned, titled, dated, and inscribed "für Moholy" by Kurt Schwitters in pencil (on the verso)
Provenance1933, given by Kurt Schwitters (b. 1940 – d. 1945), Hanover, Germany to Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (b. 1895 – d. 1946), Berlin, Amsterdam, London, and Chicago; about 1940, given by Moholy-Nagy to James Prestini (b. 1908 – d. 1993), Chicago. December 5, 2004, anonymous sale, Los Angeles Modern Auctions, Pacific Design Center, Los Angeles, lot 129, to a private American collection; October 3, 2012, anonymous (American private collection) sale, Christie’s, New York, lot 279, bought in and sold privately, through Christie’s, New York, to the MFA. (Accession Date: November 20, 2013)