Details
KURT SCHWITTERS (1887-1948)
Mr Churchill is 71
signed, dated and inscribed 'Kurt Schwitters 1947 Mr Churchill is 71' (on the artist's mount)
gouache, fabric, card, photograph and paper collage on paper laid down on the artist's mount
image: 712 x 618 in. (19.2 x 15.5 cm.)
artist's mount: 1234 x 1012 in. (32.3 x 26.7 cm.)
Executed in 1947
Provenance
Ernst Schwitters, Lysaker, by descent from the artist, in 1948 and until circa 1967.
with Konstsalongen Samlaren, Stockholm, 1966.
Private collection, Stockholm, by whom acquired circa 1967.
Heinz Trökes, Berlin, and thence by descent; sale, Sotheby’s, London, 9 December 1997, lot 256.
Acquired by the present owner in 1997.
Literature
K. Orchard & I. Schulz, eds., Kurt Schwitters: Catalogue Raisonné, vol. III, 1937-1948, Hannover, 2006, no. 3544, p. 627 (illustrated).
J. Sherwin, From France to England: British Surrealism Opened Up, Bradford, 2014, p. 64 (illustrated p. 65).
Exhibited
São Paulo, Museu de Arte Moderna, VI Bienal de São Paulo, Kurt Schwitters, October - December 1961, no. 84, p. 44.
Stockholm, Konstsalongen Samlaren, Kurt Schwitters i svensk ägo, October - November 1967, no. 64.
Norwich Gallery, Things: Assemblage, Collage and Photography since 1965, January - February 2000; this exhibition later travelled to Edinburgh City Art Centre, February - April 2000; and Sheffield, Graves Art Gallery, May - July 2000.
Hannover, Sprengel Museum, Aller Anfang ist Merz: Von Kurt Schwitters bis heute, August - November 2000, no. 216, p. 326 (illustrated p. 185); this exhibition later travelled to Dusseldorf, Kunstammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, November 2000 - February 2001; and Munich, Haus der Kunst, March - May 2001.
Wolfsburg, Kunstmuseum, Blast to Freeze: British Art in the 20th Century, September 2002 - January 2003, p. 325; this exhibition later travelled to Toulouse, Musée d'Art Moderne Les Abattoirs, February - May 2003.
Ambleside, Amitt Museum & Library, I Build My Time: Kurt Schwitters in Ambleside, October 2003 - January 2004.
Middlesbrough, Museum of Modern Art, British Surrealism and Other Realities: The Sherwin Collection, May - August 2008, p. 70 (illustrated).
Leeds, City Art Gallery, British Surrealism in Context: A Collectors Eye, July – November 2009, p. 55 (illustrated p. 211).
Special notice
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Sale Room Notice
Please note that the starting bid for this lot is now £35,000.
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Lot Essay

‘I can see from the work I am doing now, that in my old age I will be able to go on developing Merz. After my death it will be possible to distinguish 4 periods in my Merz works: the Sturm and Drang of the first works – in a sense revolutionary in the art world – then the dry, more scientific search for the new possibilities and the laws of the composition and materials, then the brilliant game with skills gained, that is to say, the present stage, and ultimately the utilization of acquired strengths in the intensification of expression. I will have achieved that in around ten years.’
(Schwitters, ‘Letter to Helma Schwitters’, 23 December 1939, quoted in Schwitters in Britain, exh. cat., London, 2013, p. 56)

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