The painter, collagist, typographer, and poet Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) was the creator of MERZ-art, which is two and three dimensional collage-like works using paper and discarded objects of everyday use.

Kurt Schwitters was born in 1887 in Hannover, Germany. His parents were reasonably well-to-do retailers who made possible his studies at the Arts and Crafts school in Hannover and four years at the Art Academy in Dresden (1909-1914). He then settled in Hannover, married Helma Fischer, served for a short time in the army, and turned away from figurative painting and began to write his first poems. In 1918 he created his first "MERZ" picture. The name derived from a piece of paper with the word "Kommerz"--the letter-head of a bank--which formed part of the collage. He had his first exhibition of these new works in 1919 at the famous Der Sturm Gallery in Berlin, directed by Herwarth Walden, who...