KURT SCHWITTERS
Hannover,(Germany) 1887 – Ambleside (United Kingdom), 1948 
He began studying art at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Hanover, transferring to the Kunstakademie in Dresden in 1909. He continued living in Hanover, where in the years just before and after the outbreak of war his painting shifted to an Expressionist style that enabled him to introduce himself in the circles connected with Der Sturm.
The two years 1918 and 1919 were crucial for his career. He formalised his relationship with the Berlin gallery, where he exhibited with Klee and Molzahn a year before his first solo exhibition (1920), while Paul Steegemann published his Anna Blume. Dichtungen. Finally, his break with the leaders of the Dada group in Berlin led him to create his Ein-Mann-Dadaismus (One-Man Dadaism), which he called “Merz”, a term that he extended to his artistic, commercial and advertising activities. This constituted the basis of his work at the time, very careful composed and incorporating discarded objects, collages, “rubber-stamp pictures”, “i-drawings” (i-Zeichnungen) and material cut from newspapers. He also produced his first sculptures, the initial material that from 1923 onwards was to lead to the transformation of his studio into the Merzbau (Merz Construction).
Through Arp and Tzara he remained closely connected with Dada, on behalf of which he gave various performances during 1921 in Dresden, Jena and Weimar, where he also attended the International Congress of Constructivists and Dadaists. This event strengthened his friendship with Theo van Doesburg, with whom he collaborated on the magazines De Stijl and Mécano. His work was influenced by Constructivist precepts, which were translated into more static, geometrical compositions. At the same time he was intensely active as an advertising and typographical designer in Hanover, where he created his own agency (Merz-Werbezentrale) in 1923. This coincided with the start of publication of his magazine Merz, which continued until 1932. In 1927, together with Vordemberge-Gildewart, César Domela and Moholy-Nagy, he co-founded the “ring neuer werbegestalter” (Circle of New Advertising Graphic Designers).
Having become a member of Cercle et Carré and Abstraction-Création, in 1937 he fled from Germany. After three years in Norway he went to live in England, where he enjoyed the friendship of Roland Penrose, Herbert Read and Naum Gabo. He concentrated on producing collages and sculptures. In 1947 he started on the final version of the Merzbau, the Merzbarn, a year before his first exhibition in the United States (Pinacotheca Gallery in New York), which opened just after he died (1948).