Kurt Schwitters

Kurt Schwitters (1887 – 1948) was a German artist born in Hanover, living in exile from 1937. He worked in several genres and media, including Dadaism, constructivism, surrealism, poetry, sound, painting, sculpture, graphic design, typography, and what came to be known as installation art. He is most famous for his collages, called “Merz Pictures”.

He was conscripted into the 73rd Hanoverian Regiment in March 1917, but was exempted on medical grounds in June of the same year. By his own account, his time as a draftsman influenced his later work and inspired him to depict machines as metaphors of human activity.