French painter and sculptor; born in Strasbourg, 1886; died in Basel, 1966. He studied first at the academy in Weimar, then at the Julian Academy in Paris. After moving to Weggis, Switzerland, in 1911, he took part in the activities of the Blue Rider and the magazine Der Sturm. Later, in Paris, he met Apollinaire and Picasso. The war overtook him in Grasse, and he moved to Zurich as a refugee; there, starting in 1916, he became well known as the cofounder with Tristan Tzara of the Dadaist movement. During his Dadaist period, he worked primarily on collages, painted wood, and reliefs. In 1930 Arp, who had been playing with the laws of chance and was interested in anti-art of every sort, became part of the Circle and Square group and was increasingly diligent in his devotion to sculpture. The elegant curves and frequently hollowed-out volumes of his marbles and bronzes are pure and concise. He also created monumental sculptures for the Caracas university campus, 1953; the UNESCO building in Paris, 1956; and the university of Bonn, 1961.
Paris: Musé National d'Art Moderne
Basel: Kunstmuseum
Clamart: Fondation Arp
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[Ferrier, Jean-Louis, Director and Yann le Pichon, Walter D. Glanze [English Translation]. Art of Our Century, The Chronicle of Western Art, 1900 to the Present. New York: Prentice-Hall Editions. 1988.]