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Kurt Schwitters

Creator

Russian Photographer · 1890–1941

EditorArtistAuthor

After studying architecture in Germany, El Lissitzky returned to his native Russia, where he became active in Jewish cultural activities, illustrating books with Jewish themes. In 1919, he was invited to teach architecture and graphics at the Vitebsk Art School, where he was influenced by Suprematism, a form of abstract painting in which colored planes hover in space over a neutral ground. Late in

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Date: about 1924–1925
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Culture: Russian
Department: Photographs
Institution: Getty Museum

This photograph portrays Kurt Schwitters, an artist who influenced El Lissitzky to come to Hanover, Germany, in the fall of 1922. Two pictures of Schwitters are superimposed over a poster promoting his journal *Merz* and an image of the July 1924 issue of *Merz* on which Lissitzky collaborated. The portrait on the left shows an animated orator, eyes ablaze and mouth open, while the image on the right shows a more subdued Schwitters with eyes half closed and mouth obscured in the multiple exposure. At the upper edge, the title of his journal appears to emerge symbolically from Schwitters's mind.

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