Live Auction 20651Impressionist and Modern Art Day and Works on Paper Sale
KURT SCHWITTERS (1887-1948)
Lot 473 PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTIONS OF ELLEN R. SUDDRETH, JULIE R. BAKER AND HENRY S. ROSENTHAL

KURT SCHWITTERS (1887-1948)

Für Jan Tschichold

Closed4 March 2022

Price Realised

GBP 23,940

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KURT SCHWITTERS (1887-1948)
Für Jan Tschichold
signed and inscribed 'Kurt Schwitters für Jan Tschichold. III. 1936' (on a label affixed to the mount)
printed paper collage on paper
12 x 9 3⁄8 in. (30.2 x 23.5 cm.)
Executed circa 1930

Edith & Jan Tschichold, Basel, a gift from the artist in 1936.
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, by whom acquired from the above in 1952.
G. David Thompson, Pittsburgh.
Galerie Beyeler, Basel, by whom acquired from the above in 1961.
Paul Hänggi, Basel.
Galerie Beyeler, Basel, by whom acquired from the above in 1963.
Ernst Schwitters, Lysaker & Marlborough Fine Art, Ltd., London, jointly acquired from the above in 1963.
Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, New York, on consignment from the above in 1967.
Acquired from the above by the family of the present owner in 1967.

Specialist note

The present work is dedicated to the calligrapher, typographer and book designer Jan Tschichold, who played a significant role in the development of graphic design in the 20th Century. Schwitters’ own exploration of graphic design first came with his Merz magazine in 1923 and he would later establish the ring neue werbebegestalter (Ring of New Advertising Designers), a loose union of graphic designers, of which Tschichold was a member. Tschichold provided the typography for the definitive version of Schwitters’ famous abstract poem Ursonate (Primal Sonata) published in a twenty-nine page special of Merz magazine in 1932.