Kurt Schwitters and England
Biography – Chronology [Stroke]
Born, 20 June 1887, Hannover, Germany
1915: Marries Helma Fischer
1918: First collages [beginning of friendships with Hans Arp and Raoul Hausmann.]
1919: First Merz painting
1922-1923: Dada-Tour [with Theo and Nelly van Doesburg]
1923: First Merzbau in Hannover.
1937: Final emigration from Germany, settles in Lysaker, near Oslo. Beginning of the Second Merzbau [destroyed by fire in 1951]. Schwitters’ works removed from Nazi German museums.
1940: April 9, escape from Oslo. June 8, arrive in England
1940-1941: 17 month in various Britain internment camps, Midlothian, Edinburgh, York, Manchester, Douglas [Isle of Man].
1941: Arrived October, London.
1944: April, London – Schwitters’ suffered his first stroke, 55 year, left him temporarily paralysed on one right side of his body.
1945: Ambleside, [Lake Windermere], Lake District. Schwitters and Edith Thomas [Wantee] lived together for the remaining three years of Schwitters’ life.
1946: Second stroke, February – which left him blind for a time, and it was feared that he might die. October, Schwitters fell and fractured his thigh.
1947: February, Fellowship [by Museum of Modern Art, New York]. June, award [money, Museum, New York], Third Merzbau, overlooking Lake Elterwater and set against the Langdale Pikes. On July 17, Schwitters suffered a lung haemorrhage lasting twelve hours, but made a rapid recovery.
1948: Died, 8 January, Kendal, near Ambleside.
I build my time
by Kurt Schwitters (1945-48)
and L.E. Usher (2015)
I build my time
The two of them laughed together a great deal
In gathering for flower
In their dual motion of walking
And throwing out the weed.
That real world was now very far off
I build my time
Sweet-smell of the wildflower
In gathering fruit
The warm wind blowing
And throwing out all that is bad
She walking across the water
And old and rotten.
On the stepping stones.
This time will lead me forward
Yet did he have a previous life?
To death
As there stones, since in
And God
In real truth
And Paradise.
There was no God?
[1958 Gaberbocchus Press. London]
The Aim
by Kurt Schwitter’s (1947)
and L.E. Usher (2015)
Benumbed situation and desolation and confusion and pain
The aim is hurting day and night
His weary. Questions and queries
From spring to autumn
Stuck in your throat
Over the winter again
Pale, pale, pale, his wintry face
And on
The complete darkness, frigid Merzbau
By light
The stirring of rodents and bats
You would not believe it was right
In their hibernating.
You would think it was left
And then?
Left luggage, left weight.
The wind starts, the wind constantly,
But the aim hunting and night.
His mind from the chaos of emotions
The aim is right.
A swallow rushed past his head
A memorable sight.
He called her name, Wantee,
Quite –
His last words.
[1958. Gaberbocchus Press, London]
[Notes]
— By Stefan Themerson (friend), Gaberbocchus Press Ltd., London. 1958
- 13pp KS : “to exercise the faculty of speech”
- 27pp. His Britain passport was granted him the day before he died.
- 41pp. Edith Thomas, ‘Wantee’, companion and a nurse: ‘… his mind still vigorous and creative although his body was in a very weak [stroke] … His answer was always: “I have so little time.” He died in the middle of this work in 8 January, 1948, and buried in Ambleside Cemetery.
- 53pp. The Aim: ‘There exists however a typewritten copy in which the word “aim” in lines 1 and 9 but not in line reads: “arm”.
- photos: Ambleside Ernst Schwitters (son) 37pp and 39pp
— ed & trans by Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris. Temple University Press, Philadelphia. 1993. Kurt Schwitters PPPPP : Poems Performance Pieces Proses Plays Poetics.
- xxii pp: ‘The goal is serious, the way humorous. Or sarcastic. Or a game. Everybody’s life is wholly like that, when lived without external coercion. We play until death takes us away.’ Kurt Schwitters, in 1946 letter to Christof Spengemann.
- 106pp, 1946, ‘She is my fairy queen’, poem.
- 114pp, 1947, ‘The Prisoner’, poem.
— by John Elderfield. Thames & Hudson, London, 1985. Kurt Schwitters
197–223pp, Schwitters in Exile
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