7 Arpaden Von Hans Arp: 3 Ein Nabel (A Navel)

Artist: Jean (Hans) Arp (French, born Germany, 1886–1966)

ca. 1923

Prints and Drawings

Jean Arp executed his lithographic suite of 7 Arpaden von Hans Arp during a visit to Kurt Schwitters’s house in 1923 and published them through Schwitters’s press as Merz 5. Like a schematic dictionary, the seven absurdly titled plates depict in radically simplified form the recurring motifs of Arp’s work from the 1920s. Mustache Hat, the first plate, is an agglomeration of basic shapes that are variously configured in the succeeding images. Ranging from elemental (Das Meer) to fanciful (Schnurruhr, a rhyming pun in German), the titles playfully compress high and low into a shared visual language.

Medium

Lithograph

Dimensions

image: 3/4 × 13/16 in. (1.9 × 2.1 cm)
sheet: 17 11/16 × 13 3/4 in. (45 × 35 cm)

Credit Line

Gift of the Estate of Katherine S. Dreier

Accession Number

1953.6.137e

Geography
Culture
Period

20th century

Classification
Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Bibliography
  • Catherine Craft et al., The Nature of Arp, exh. cat. (Dallas: Nasher Sculpture Center, 2018), no. 17
  • Ruth L. Bohan et al., The Société Anonyme: Modernism for America, ed. Jennifer Gross, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2006), 188, ill.
Object copyright
Additional information

Object/Work type

lithographs

Signed

Arp, Jean (Hans), 1887-1966

Technical metadata and APIs

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