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Jean Arp

"Art is the consequence, the sum of all tensions of our time."

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Notes of biography

Hans Arp, Jean, was born in Strasbourg in 1887. He studied first to the Art Academy of Weimar (1904-1906), then to the Julian Academy in Paris (1908). He was a founder member of the group “Der Moderne Bund” in 1911. In 1912 he contributed to the Blaue Reiter Almanac and exhibited with this group. Jean Arp, then, created abstract collages.
In 1914, he took refuge in France, in Switzerland the following year, managing to be made exempted of his service in the German army. He met Sophie Taeuber in 1915 and married the painter in 1922. They created together abstract “duet-collages” with papers cut out with the trimmer. The following year, he was co-founder of the Dada group of Zurich ; later he took part in the Dada movement of Berlin and Cologne.
In 1916, he worked with the fate into his collages by retaining the position taken by papers he let fall on a sheet. At that time, Arp created reliefs with assemblies of lively-colors-plates of wood (1916-1917). In 1920, he created an alphabet for his reliefs where the signs evoke real forms. He invented and painted decorations of ballets.
Arp settled down in Paris in 1925 and joined the surrealist movement. He made his first sculptures. He took French nationality in 1926 and organised his first personal exhibition the year after. In 1928, Arp practised the automatic writing of the surrealists and their game: the exquisite corpse. Arp took part in "Circle and Square" (1929), in Abstraction-Creation (1932), in Allianz (1937). About 1930, he added a variant to his collages with "torn papers".
With the declaration of war, Arp gallicised his first name in Jean. From 1942 to 1945, Arp took refuge in Switzerland where his wife, Sophie Tauber Arp, died tragically. Throughout his life, Arp was devoted to poetry at the same time to his plastic work. Arp also carried out a monumental work. Jean Arp died in Bâle, Switzerland, in 1966.

Artists on display

The art and the artists display: proclamations, galleries, museums, personal or collective exhibitions. On walls or in shop windows, wise or rebels, posters warn, argue, show. Some were specially conceived by an artist for such or such event, other, colder, have only the letter.

Some were created in lithographic technic, most are simple offset reproductions. They are many those who like collecting these rectangles of paper, monochrome or in games of colours, in matt paper or brilliant, with many words or almost dumb.

We are happy also to be able to greet, by this pages, mythical galleries as those of Denise René, Louis Carré, Claude Bernard, Berheim Jeune, Maeght, Pierre Loeb and others.

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Complete work(s)

Complete work(s)
*« Sculptures de 1957 à 1966 », F. Arp, Arthur Niggli, Teufen, 1968 All the complete works

Bibliographic track and more

To read about the artist :
  • «Jean Arp», I. Jianou, Arted, Paris, 1973
  • «Arp, bibliographie», A. Bleikasten, 2 Vol., Grant & Cutter, Londres, 1981/83
  • «Jean Arp, rétrospective», MAM de la ville de Paris, 1986
  • «Hans Arp», S. Fauchereau, Albin Michel, 1988
  • «Jean Arp : L'invention de la forme», Collectif, Ed. 5 continets, 2004
  • «Dada», Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, 2005
  • «Art is Arp, Les ateliers de Hans-Jean Arp», I. Ewig, Ed. Musees De Strasbourg, 2009
  • «Hans Arp, La nature des choses», collectif, Ed. Feymedia, 2012
  • «Atelier Jean Arp et Sophie Taeuber», Renaud Ego, Fondation Arp, Éd. des Cendre, 2012
  • «Jean Arp sculptures», Ari Hartig, Ed. Hatje Cantz, 2012
To read from the artist :
  • «Jours effeuillés», Gallimard, Paris, 1966
  • «Sable de lune: poèmes choisis», Jean Arp, Ed. Arfuyen, 2005
Website :
www.fondationarp.org/

More :


Art movements

+ PHOTOGRAPHY BETWEEN WARS / 1918-1939 / Robert Tatlin, Alexandre Rodchenko, etc.
+ DADAISM / 1916-1924 / Erwin Blumenfeld, Marcel Duchamp, Marcel Janco, Kurt Schwitters, Sophie Taueber-Arp, etc.
+ SURREALISM / 1924-1969 / Marcel Duchamp, Dora Maar, Kurt Schwitters, Taro Okamoto, Antonio Berni, etc.
+ ABSTRACTION-CREATION / 1931-1938 / Etienne Béothy, Frantisek Kupka, Piet Mondrian, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Georges Vantongerloo, etc.
All art movements

See & discover

Beyond works currently in stock, it seemed to me useful to combine business with pleasure by letting you discover others works by artists in my gallery. These artworks, now sold or removed from our website, have been in our stock in the past.

These pages will undoubtedly make it possible for some of you to associate an image with its title or the other way round, for others it will be a good time to discover more on such and such artist. For the sake of confidentiality – the pieces being no longer available – we won't display neither their numbering or their price. For whatever reason, make sure to visit this amazing art database with to date 6441 online works just for your pleasure! Michelle Champetier

See & discover