Hans Jean Arp (Strasbourg, 16 September 1887 – Basel, 7 June 1966) was a French painter, sculptor and poet. In 1904, after leaving the Ecole des Arts et Métiers in Strasbourg, he visited Paris and published his poems for the first time. Read the full biography
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Hans Jean Arp (Strasbourg, 16 September 1887 – Basel, 7 June 1966) was a French painter, sculptor and poet. In 1904, after leaving the Ecole des Arts et Métiers in Strasbourg, he visited Paris and published his poems for the first time. From 1905 to 1907 he studied at the Kunstschule in Weimar and in 1908 at the Académie Julian in Paris. In 1909 he moved to Switzerland, where in 1911 he was among the founders of the avant-garde group Moderner Bund. The following year he met Robert and Sonia Delaunay in Paris and Vasily Kandinsky in Munich. In 1913 he participated in the Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon at the Der Sturm gallery in Berlin. Returning to Paris in 1914 he met Max Jacob, Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire. In 1915 he went to Zurich, where he created collages and tapestries, often in collaboration with his future wife Sophie Taeuber. In 1916 Hugo Ball opened the Cabaret Voltaire, destined to become the center of Dada events in Zurich for a group of artists including Arp, Tristan Tzara, Marcel Janco and others. Arp's participation in Dadaism continued even after his move to Cologne in 1919. In 1922 he participated in the Kongress der Konstruktivisten in Weimar. Shortly afterwards he began collaborating with various magazines, such as "Merz", "Mécano", "De Stijl", and later "La Révolution Surréaliste". In 1925 he participated in the first exhibition of the surrealist group at the Galerie Pierre in Paris, and the following year he settled in France, in Meudon. In 1931 he joined the Abstraction-Création group and collaborated on the periodical "Transition". During the 1930s, and until his death, he continued to write and publish poems and essays. In 1942 he fled to Zurich; but he will return to Meudon again in 1946. the artist visits New York in 1949, on the occasion of his solo show held at Curt Valentin's Buchholz Gallery. The following year he was commissioned to do a survey for the Harvard Graduate Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1954 he obtained the International Prize for Sculpture at the Venice Biennale. In 1958 the Museum of Modern Art in New York and in 1962 the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris dedicated a major retrospective to him. Arp died in Basel on 7 June 1966.
