Product Description
Kurt Schwitters, one of the great visual artists of the 20th century, was also one of the major poets and theorists of Modernism. This collection brings the vast range of his writings to an English audience. This book was the winner of the 1994 PEN Center USA West Literary Award for Translation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Touching Nonsense
Like his Merz collages, Schwitters' poems take dissociated elements and glue them to together to make an aesthetically pleasing whole.As an artist and a writer Schwitters has the supreme ability to create beautyfrom cast-off fragments, using them to his own designs of witty word-playand absurd juxtaposition.Fantasy abounds and is mixed withadvertisements, fragments of conversation, and themes of desire.In bothhis writings and his collages he sought to "erase the boundariesbetween the arts."Usually only known for "Anna Blume",Schwitters was an avid writer and this book collects his absurdist plays,nonsensical proses (sic), essays about his life and work (and Dada, poetry,and language), and over 100 of his unique poems.Of all the Dadaliterature (perhaps excluding Arp), his is the most pleasing andre-readable.Unfortuately some of his German punning and word-play is lostin translation, but can be seen in works that were originally written inEnglish.Never before has nonsense been so emotionally charged or touching(and lets not leave out humorous and outrageous).This is the bestcollection of Schwitters' work in English that I have come across.Highlyrecommended.

Touching Nonsense
Like his Merz collages, Schwitters' poems take dissociated elements and glue them to together to make an aesthetically pleasing whole.As an artist and a writer Schwitters has the supreme ability to create beautyfrom cast-off fragments, using them to his own designs of witty word-playand absurd juxtaposition.Fantasy abounds and is mixed withadvertisements, fragments of conversation, and themes of desire.In bothhis writings and his collages he sought to "erase the boundariesbetween the arts."Usually only known for "Anna Blume",Schwitters was an avid writer and this book collects his absurdist plays,nonsensical proses (sic), essays about his life and work (and Dada, poetry,and language), and over 100 of his unique poems.Of all the Dadaliterature (perhaps excluding Arp), his is the most pleasing andre-readable.Unfortuately some of his German punning and word-play is lostin translation, but can be seen in works that were originally written inEnglish.Never before has nonsense been so emotionally charged or touching(and lets not leave out humorous and outrageous).This is the bestcollection of Schwitters' work in English that I have come across.Highlyrecommended. ... Read more

Product Description
Kurt Schwitters' stated goal was to "erase the boundaries between the arts." This collection, culled from the five-volume German edition of Schwitters' writings, introduces the total work of art that is Merz through Schwitters' words. Included is the complete text for the "Ursonate," Schwitters' legendary and lengthy epic of sound poetry, which, as poets, editors and translators Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris comment, "is to sound poetry what Joyce's Ulysses is to the twentieth-century novel." ... Read more

Product Description
German artist Kurt Schwitters began constructing the Merzbau, a combination of collage, sculpture, and architecture, in a corner of his studio in Hannover, Germany in 1920. Also called the Cathedral of Erotic Misery, this was Schwitters's private world. It eventually took over his entire living quarters, the apartment above, and part of the yard, and was divided into rooms-the Biedermeier Room, the de Stijl Room, the Goethe Cave, the Mondrian Cave, and the Mies Cave, among others. It was destroyed during an Allied bombing raid in 1943.

Although the Merzbau is of essential importance in understanding the early Modern Movement, this is the first in-depth study in English of this structure. Elizabeth Burns Gamard discusses its physical evolution and its significance within the artist's oeuvre. She also investigates its larger relation to German Expressionism and romanticism and to critical thought of the time. This book offers an in-depth analysis of a single structure through original documents, drawings, and critical examination of the design process. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

I wish this were better
I had high hopes for this book, and what I think it's trying to do is admirable, ranging and probing.I had wanted to use a chapter from it for a college course.But upon close reading, I became more and more disappointed with the writing, and convinced that I couldn't put this in front of students.There are key ideas - exciting insights into Schwitters' total program, and difficulty of elucidating his particular mysticism - woven together in prose that's alternately clear and convoluted.It's not simply that it's "scholarly" - that doesn't put me off - but that it sets out to elucidate a difficult subject, one that needs attention, and still doesn't seem quite clear to itself.Maybe this impression is encouraged by the many editing mistakes in this book - it cries out for a copy editor ( - words are missing, phrases transposed, spelling, etc.).Again, I admire the effort - can we send it back for a re-write?I really want this book to succeed.

Too many inaccuracies
This study of Kurt Schwitters's Merzbau is very disappointing, particularly coming from a Professor of Architecture, as the largely unexplored architectural aspects of the Merzbau have in general been ignored. The first part of the book is interesting insofar as it provides an introduction to the post-modernist aspects of Schwitters's work, but when it comes to more detail about Schwitters and the Merzbau, there are far too many inaccuracies. For instance, Professor Gamard is unsure about the exact location of the main sections of the Merzbau (placing it both on the ground and second floor of Schwitters' home) and is vague on Weimar history, stating that Weimar was the capital of the Weimar Republic. In all, there is far too much in this book which is plain theorising and which has no substantial factual basis. ... Read more

Product Description
Although Kurt Schwitters was one of the most influential artists of international modernism, only select portions of his immensely varied body of pictorial work have been investigated thoroughly. And what a body of work it is, unlike one ever seen before or after, combining bits of found detritus into compositions of tight, unexpected melodies and startling tunes. Schwitters was constantly sighting scraps of handbills, train tickets, newspapers, clothing, and more on the city streets, pocketing them for later use in one of his Merz collages. His intense body of found object constructions stands as one of the premier examples of the ultimtate modern form, assemblage, of which he has been called the "grandfather."After extensive research worldwide and a complete examination of his artistic estate, Schwitters's oeuvre has finally been properly acknowledged, documented, and prepared for public presentation. The comprehensive Kurt Schwitters Catalogue Raisonné, of which the present volume is the third installation, includes more than four thousand works from the period between 1905 and 1948, many of them published for the first time. Lost and destroyed works are documented whenever possible. For ease of reference, the survey is ordered chronologically; within each year, works are sub-divided according to genre. In this third volume are presented creations spanning Schwitters's years in exile, 1937 to 1948, when he escaped Nazi Germany to live first in Norway and then in England. Though artworks are primarily reproduced in black-and-white, each volume of the catalogue also presents color reproductions of representative works.Clothbound, 10.5 x 12 in./776 pgs / 140 color and 1200 b&w. ... Read more

Product Description
Kurt Schwitters was one of the most influential, groundbreaking, and forward-looking artists of international Modernism-yet only certain areas of his immensely diverse oeuvre have been thoroughly investigated and catalogued. His has now been properly and fully documented for the first time, in a landmark three-volume catalogue raisonn, which is particularly notable for bringing to light many of Schwitters' previously unpublished pictorial work, including collages, drawings, and paintings. This first volume covers the artist's early years, with little-known works form the period prior to World War I, as well as the earliest MERZ pieces he created between 1918 and 1922. Schwitters' works are here organized chronologically and, within years, according to genre, and the book also features a detailed illustrated biography of the artist. ... Read more

Product Description
There is scarcely an artist working today, provided they use materials other than paint, who does not refer to Kurt Schwitters in some way. In his bold and wide-ranging experiments, his prodigious collages and ground-breaking environments, he can be seen as the grandfather of pop art, happenings, concept art, Fluxus, multimedia art, and even postmodernism--yet only certain parts of his immensely varied pictorial work have been thoroughly investigated. From the Dadaist collages to the final, partial incarnation of the Merzbau in the Lake District of England, Schwitters's oeuvre is here documented and properly acknowledged for the first time in a three-volume catalogue raisonné, of which this is the second installment. More than 4,000 works produced between 1905 and 1948, among them numerous previously unpublished, destroyed and lost pictures and paintings, are presented in this authoritative compendium, following worldwide research and a complete viewing of his artistic estate. The artist's works are ordered chronologically and then according to genre, and illustrated in black and white; select representative works appear in color.
This second volume covers the years from 1923 to 1936, a period in which Schwitters added steadily to his Hanover Merzbau and in which his work reflected his struggle with international constructivism. The volume ends with his 1937 flight from Germany. This publication is edited by the Sprengel Museum, Hanover, with the help of Karin Orchard and Isabel Schulz on behalf of the Norddeutsche Landesbank and the Stadtsparkasse Hanover.
Also Available:
Kurt Schwitters Catalogue Raisonné: Volume I 1905-1922
Hbk, 10 x 12 in. / 552 pgs / 150 color and 950 b&w
ISBN: 30-7757-0926-6 $250
Hatje Cantz Publishers

Forthcoming in 2004:
Kurt Schwitters Catalogue Raisonné: Volume 3 1937-1948
Hatje Cantz Publishers
A person so complicated and paradoxical as Schwitters cannot be tackled in a few words. --Hannah Höch

Edited by Karin Orchard and Isabel Schulz.

Hardcover, 10.25 x 11.75 in., 584 pages, 110 color, 885 b/willustrations ... Read more