Cut-and-pasted colored and printed paper, cardstock, wood and pencil on paper
Not on view
This work is a part of a series titled Merz, a term Schwitters invented from the second syllable of the German word Kommerz (or “commerce”). He used it to describe collage and assemblage works he made from scavenged scrap materials. Schwitters was trained as a painter, but as World War I came to an end he adopted collage as his preferred process. “Everything had broken down in any case and new things had to be made out of the fragments,” he said. With his Merz project he aimed to “create connections, preferably between everything in this world.”
2025
Provenance Research Project
This work is included in the Provenance Research Project, which investigates the ownership history of works in MoMA's collection.
[Maria Kunde 1927]
Katherine S. Dreier (1877-1952), NY. [Purchased from artist?] By 1948 - 1953
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Katherine S. Dreier Bequest, 1953
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