Ernst Schwitters in Norway: Photographs 1930-1960 (Multilingual Edition)

Ernst Schwitters in Norway is the first broad overview of the photographs of Ernst Schwitters, the son of Kurt Schwitters, and most of the pictures in it had not been published before.

The Kurt and Ernst Schwitters Foundation in Hanover edited the book and drew the selection from its collection. It covers photograms from the early 1930s, architectural and industrial photographs, and Norwegian landscapes. Olav Løkke, Robert Meyer and Isabel Schulz contribute texts in German, English and Norwegian. The 232-page hardcover relates to an exhibition of the work shown at Sprengel Museum Hannover from 2005 into 2006 and then at Preus fotomuseum in Horten in 2006.

Schwitters lived in Norway from 1937 to 1940 and again from 1945 until his death in 1996. He learned basic photography as a child in Germany and documented many of his father’s works. A visit from Man Ray in 1929 introduced him to avant-garde experiment, and he went on to work in the classical photogram and to show abstract pictures internationally. In the late 1940s and 1950s he was regarded as one of Norway’s leading photographers.