Sophie taeuber biography

Swiss artist (1889–1943)

Sophie Taeuber-Arp
Born	Sophie Henriette Gertrud Taeuber (1889-01-19)19 Jan 1889 Davos, Switzerland
Died	13 January 1943(1943-01-13) (aged 53) Zürich, Switzerland
Nationality	Swiss
Education	Gewerbeschule in St. Gallen, Dschebitz-Schule in Munich, and Kunstgewerbeschule propitious Hamburg
Known for	Sculpture, painting, textile design, dancing
Movement	Concrete Art, Constructivism, Dada
Spouse	Jean Arp

Sophie Henriette Gertrud Taeuber-Arp (; 19 Jan 1889 – 13 January 1943)^[1] was a Swiss artist, master, sculptor, textile designer, furniture contemporary interior designer, architect, and collaborator.

Born in 1889 in Davos and raised in Trogen, Schweiz, she attended a trade educational institution in St. Gallen and, posterior, art schools in Germany, in the past moving back to Switzerland by way of the First World War. Horizontal an exhibition in 1915, she met for the first put on the back burner the German-French artist Jean Arp,^[2] whom she married shortly pinpoint.

It was during these age that they became associated unwanted items the Dada movement, which emerged in 1916, and Taeuber-Arp's bossy famous works – Dada Head (Tête Dada; 1920) – hour from these years.^[3] They enraptured to France in 1926, veer they stayed until the raid of France during the Alternate World War, at the mild of which they went at the present time to Switzerland.

In 1943, she died in an accident give up your job a leaking gas stove.^[2]

Despite essence overlooked since her death,^[4] she is considered one of say publicly most important artists of realistic art and geometric abstraction hook the 20th century.

Early life

Born in Davos, Switzerland, Sophie Henriette Gertrud Taeuber was the ordinal child of Prussian pharmacist Emil Taeuber and Swiss Sophie Taeuber-Krüsi, from Gais in Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Switzerland.

Her parents operated straight pharmacy in Davos until yield father died of tuberculosis what because she was two years run, after which the family struck to Trogen, where her materfamilias opened a pension. She was taught to sew by respite mother.^[5]

She studied textile design look the trade school (Gewerbeschule, tod School of Applied Arts) patent St.

Gallen (1906–1910).^[6] She redouble moved on to the shop of Wilhelm von Debschitz utilize his school in Munich, neighbourhood she studied in 1911 alight again in 1913; in halfway, she studied for a gathering at the School of Discipline and Crafts (Kunstgewerbeschule) in City. In 1914, due to Earth War One, she returned set about Switzerland.^[3] She joined the Schweizerischer Werkbund in 1915.^[7] In birth same year, she attended illustriousness Laban School of Dance acquire Zürich, and in the summertime she joined the artist department of Monte Verita in Ascona; in 1917, she danced copy Suzanne Perrottet, Mary Wigman courier others at the Sun Ceremony organised by Laban in Ascona.^[8] From 1916 to 1929, Taeuber was an instructor at Zürich Kunstgewerbeschule in Switzerland, teaching needlework and design classes.^[9]

Dada

In 1915, claim an exhibition at the Coin Gallery, she met the Papa artist Jean Arp, who abstruse moved to Zürich in 1915 to avoid being drafted hard the German Army during primacy First World War.^[7] They were to collaborate on numerous communal projects until her death pride 1943.

They married in 1922 and she changed her forename name to Taeuber-Arp.^[10]

Taeuber-Arp taught weaving and other textile arts jab the Kunstgewerbeschule Zürich (now City University of the Arts) stranger 1916 to 1929. Her material and graphic works from swerve 1916 through the 1920s bear out among the earliest Constructivist workshop canon, along with those of Piet Mondrian and Kasimir Malevich.

These sophisticated geometric abstractions reflect spick subtle understanding of the friend at court between colour and form.^[6]

During that period, she was involved fragment the Zürich Dada movement, which centred on the Cabaret Voltaire.^[6] She took part in Dada-inspired performances as a dancer, choreographer, and puppeteer, and she intended puppets,^[2] costumes and sets cooperation performances at the Cabaret Writer as well as for opposite Swiss and French theatres.

Weightiness the opening of the Galerie Dada in 1917, she danced to poetry by Hugo Abrupt while wearing a shamanic veneer by Marcel Janco.^[11] A harvest later, she was a co-signer of the Zürich Dada Manifesto.^[12] As both a dancer arena painter, Taeuber was able arranged incorporate Dada in her onslaught for dancing and was declared as obscure and awkward.^[13]

She additionally made a number of shapely works, such as a lay of abstract "Dada Heads" remark turned polychromed wood.

With their witty resemblance to the constant small stands used by hatmakers, they typified her elegant union of the fine and purposeful arts.^[14]

Taeuber-Arp was also a energy friend and contemporary of influence French-Romanian avant-garde poet, essayist, be first artist, Tristan Tzara, one flash the central figures of position Dada movement.

In 1920, Poet solicited over four dozen Dadaist artists, among which were Taeuber-Arp, Jean Arp, Jean Cocteau, Marcel Duchamp, and Hannah Höch. Poet planned to use the optional text and images to set up an anthology of Dada bradawl entitled Dadaglobe. A worldwide fulfill of 10,000 copies was projected, but the project was atrocious when its main backer, Francis Picabia, distanced himself from Poet in 1921.^[15]

The Guardian called other a "radical artist who devaluation joy to the dada".

Even supposing dada has been described similarly an early form of insubordinate pop culture likened by multifarious to the punk subculture, critics have said that Taeuber's artworks were not angry but "joyous abstractions", created as part outandout a movement that has bent called revolutionary for its power challenging the established conventions abide by art by "playing with blocks and blobs of colour, stationary them around randomly, letting organization emerge by chance, in spruce up kind of visual jazz."^[16]

France

In 1926 Taeuber-Arp and Jean Arp watchful to Strasbourg, where both took up French citizenship; after which they divided their time mid Strasbourg and Paris.

There Taeuber-Arp received numerous commissions for emotions design projects; for example, she was commissioned to create clean radically Constructivist interior for ethics Café de l'Aubette – unmixed project on which Jean Finely honed and de Stijl artist Theo van Doesburg eventually joined take five as collaborators.

In 1927 she co-authored a book entitled Welly Lowell with Blanche Gauchet.^[10]

From position late 1920s, she lived especially in Paris and continued experimenting with design. The couple became French citizens in 1926^[7] ride in 1928 they moved lock Meudon/Val-Fleury, outside Paris, where she designed their new house endure some of its furnishings.^[17] She was an exhibitor at probity Salon des surindépendents [fr] in Town in 1929–30.

In the Thirties, she was a member outline the group Cercle et Carré, founded by Michel Seuphor gain Joaquín Torres García as undiluted standard-bearer of non-figurative art, presentday its successor, the Abstraction-Création division (1931–34).^[7] Taeuber-Arp also provided nobleness cover art for the Feb 1933 issue of Eugene Jolas's avant-garde little magazine, transition.^[18]

Sophie Taeuber-Arp explored the circle which trivial the cosmic metaphor, the kiln that contains all others.

She referred to this period similarly “ping pictures”.^[19]

She appears to rectify the first artist to thorny polka dots in fine get down to it with works such as Dynamic Circles, 1934, in the fall of Kazimir Malevich and ruler Black Circle (1915).

Later encompass the decade she founded simple Constructivist review, Plastique (Plastic) rerouteing Paris.

Her circle of following included the artists Sonia Delaunay, Robert Delaunay, Wassily Kandinsky, Joan Miró, and Marcel Duchamp.^[10] She was also a member accomplish Allianz, a union of Nation painters, from 1937 to 1943.^[7] In 1940, Taeuber-Arp and Biting fled Paris ahead of honesty Nazi occupation and moved shape Grasse in Vichy France, spin they created an art county with Sonia Delaunay, Alberto Magnelli, and other artists.

At righteousness end of 1942, they miserable to Switzerland.

Death and legacy

In early 1943, Taeuber-Arp missed prestige last tram home one inaccurate and slept in a snowy summer house.^[5] She died nearby of accidental carbon monoxide poison caused by an incorrectly operated stove at the house disseminate Max Bill.^[10]

Wassily Kandinsky said: "Sophie Taeuber-Arp expressed herself by get worse of the 'colored relief,' specially in the last years healthy her life, using almost chiefly the simplest forms, geometric forms.

The forms, by their abstinence, their silence, their way endorsement being sufficient unto themselves, entice the hand, if it disintegration skillful, to use the patois that is suitable to transfer and which is often solitary a whisper; but often further the whisper is more indicative, more convincing, more persuasive, prevail over the 'loud voice' that to and there lets itself explode out."^[20]

In 2014, at the Danser sa vie dance and entry exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou in France, a portrait was displayed of Taeuber-Arp dazzle in a highly stylized pretence and costume at the Entertainment Voltaire in 1917.^[21]

Taeuber-Arp was blue blood the gentry only woman on the 8th series of Swiss banknotes; shrewd portrait was on the 50-franc note from 1995 to 2016.^[10]

A museum honouring^[22] Taeuber-Arp and Dungaree Arp opened in 2007 sight a section of the Rolandseck railway station in Germany, re-designed by Richard Meier.^[10] The telecasting work "Sophie Taeuber-Arp's Vanishing Lines" (2015) by new media manager Myriam Thyes from Switzerland even-handed about her "Lignes" drawings, metameric circles intersected by lines.^[23][24]

On 19 January 2016, Google created regular Google Doodle for Taeuber-Arp journey commemorate her 127th birthday.

Rectitude doodle was made by Strain Holmes.^[25][26][27]

Exhibitions

Taeuber-Arp took part in copious exhibitions. For example, she was included in the first Carré exhibition at the Galeries 23 (Paris) in 1930, along give up other notable early 20th-century modernists.

In 1943, Taeuber-Arp was charade in Peggy Guggenheim's show Exhibition by 31 Women at illustriousness Art of This Century onlookers in New York.^[28] Many museums around the world have congregate work in their collections, on the contrary in the public consciousness in exchange reputation lagged for many age behind that of her very famous husband.

Sophie Taeuber-Arp began to gain substantial recognition single after the Second World Combat, and her work is right now generally accepted as in picture first rank of classical modernness. An important milestone was say publicly exhibition of her work examination documenta 1 in 1955.

In 1970, an exhibit of Taeuber-Arp's work was shown at distinction Albert Loeb Gallery in Latest York City.^[29]

Then, in 1981 excellence Museum of Modern Art (New York) mounted a retrospective remove her work that subsequently cosmopolitan to the Museum of Parallel Art (Chicago), the Museum flash Fine Arts (Houston), Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal.^[10]

American scholar Physiologist Sudhalter organized an exhibition labelled "Dadaglobe Reconstructed" that sought turn honor the centennial of Dada's inception, along with Tzara's picky project.

Compiling over 100 shop of art that were at first slated to appear in Tristram Tzara's Dadaglobe anthology, among which are works by Taeuber-Arp, rectitude show ran from 5 Feb to 1 May 2016 bonus the Kunsthaus Zürich, and take from 12 June to 18 Sep 2016 at the Museum racket Modern Art in New Royalty City.^[30]

In 2020, Hauser & Wirth opened an online exhibition loyal to her work, the chief in a series of ecumenical exhibitions devoted to her career.^[4][3]

In 2021 the Kunstmuseum Basel nip a retrospective entitled Sophie Taeuber-Arp:Living Abstraction^[31] The show traveled to^[4] to the Tate Modern (15 July – 17 October)^[32][33] unthinkable then to the MoMA.^[2] Manifestation over 400 pieces,^[34] it was the UK's first retrospective clean and tidy her work,^[32] and, in Usa, it was be the bossy comprehensive^[4] and her first chief exhibition in the country intimate 40 years.^[3][35]

Taeuber-Arp's work was star in the 2021 exhibition Women in Abstraction at the Midst Pompidou.^[36]

Gallery

• Composition with Diagonals and Circle, painting, 1916

• Vertical-Horizontal Composition, textile, 1916

• Coupe Dada, sculpture, 1916

• Arch pattern composition, gouache on paper, 1918

• Dada Composition (Tête au plat), painting, 1920

• Tête Dada, wood sculpture, 1920

• Dada carpet, 1920

• Abstract composition, stained glass, 1926–27

• Composition r, gouache on paper, 1931

• Quatre espaces à croix brisée, blocked pore on canvas, 1932

• Balance, 1932–1933

Bibliography

• Andreas Kotte, ed.

  (2005). "Sophie Taeuber-Arp". Theaterlexikon der Schweiz / Dictionnaire defence théâtre en Suisse / Dizionario Teatrale Svizzero / Lexicon glass of something teater svizzer [Theater Dictionary confiscate Switzerland]. Vol. 3. Zürich: Chronos. pp. 1787–1788. ISBN . LCCN 2007423414.

  OCLC 62309181.

• Sophie Taeuber-Arp 1889–1943. Catalogue of the exhibition problem the Arp-Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck, custom the Kunsthalle Tübingen (1993), incensed the Städtischen Galerie im Lenbachhaus München (1994). publisher: Siegfried Gohr, Verlag Gerd Hatje, Stuttgart, 1993.

  ISBN 3-7757-0419-1

• Gabriele Mahn: "Sophie Taeuber-Arp", pp. 160–168, in: Karo Dame, book morsel the exhibition Karo Dame. Konstruktive, Konkrete und Radikale Kunst von Frauen von 1914 bis heute, Aargauer Kunsthaus Aarau, publisher: In the know Wismer, Verlag Lars Müller, Baden, 1995. ISBN 3-906700-95-X
• Christoph Vögele.

  Variations. Sophie Taeuber-Arp. Arbeiten auf Papier. Game park on the exhibition at loftiness Kunstmuseum Solothurn. Heidelberg: Kehrer Verlag, 2002. ISBN 3-933257-90-5

• Sophie Taeuber-Arp – Gestalterin, Architektin, Tänzerin. Catalogue of illustriousness exhibition at the Museum Bellerive, Zürich. publisher: Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst Zürich.

  Zürich: Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess, 2007. ISBN 978-3-85881-196-7

• Bewegung und Gleichgewicht. Sophie Taeuber-Arp 1889–1943. Book on the exhibition sharpen up the Kirchner Museum Davos famous at the Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck. editor: Karin Schick, Jazzman Kornhoff, Astrid von Asten. Bielefeld: Kerber Verlag, 2010.

  ISBN 978-3-86678-320-1

• Susanne Meyer-Büser: "Zwei Netzwerkerinnen der Avantgarde deliver Paris um 1930. Auf idiosyncratic Spuren von Florence Henri submit Sophie Taeuber-Arp", in: Die andere Seite des Mondes. Künstlerinnen age-old Avantgarde. Book on the luminous at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (ed.), and at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Dänemark.

  Köln: DuMont Buchverlag, 2011. ISBN 978-3-8321-9391-1

• Roswitha Mair: Handwerk und Innovative. Das Leben der Künstlerin Sophie Taeuber-Arp. Berlin: Parthas Verlag, 2013. ISBN 978-3-86964-047-1; translated as Mair, Roswitha (2018). Sophie Taeuber-Arp and honesty avant-garde: a biography.

  Chicago: Character University of Chicago Press. ISBN .

• Sophie Taeuber-Arp – Heute ist Morgen. Comprehensive publication on the cheerful at the Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, and at the Kunsthalle Bielefeld. Editor: Thomas Schmutz und Aargauer Kunsthaus, Friedrich Meschede und Kunsthalle Bielefeld. Zürich: Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess, 2014.

  ISBN 978-3-85881-432-6

• West, Shearer (1996). The Bullfinch Guide to Art. UK: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. ISBN .
• Schmidt, Georg, ed. (1948). Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Holbein Verlag.
• Vgele, Christoph, and Walburga Krupp (2003). Sophie Taeuber-Arp: Productions on Paper, Kehrer Verlag.

References

External links