A Radiating World: Kurt Schwitters and El Lissitzky

Were it not for the German Dada artist Kurt Schwitters, Lissitzky may not have received the commissions for the two Kestner portfolios, currently on view, which I recently blogged about. Through an introduction from Schwitters, Lissitzky met the president of the Kestner Society during a visit to Hanover in 1922. After hosting Lissitzky’s first solo exhibition early the following year, the society of art supporters commissioned him to produce its first and then second limited edition lithographic portfolio as gifts for its members. You can see the Phillips’s fabulous collage by Schwitters, Radiating World, completed just three years before these Lissitzky prints, in an installation currently on view in the Main Gallery of the house.

Elsa Smithgall, Curator

Kurt Schwitters's Radiating World (1920) hangs at left in this view of the current installation of the Phillips Main Gallery. Photo: Joshua Navarro

Kurt Schwitters’s Radiating World (1920) hangs at left in this view of the current installation of the Phillips Main Gallery. Photo: Joshua Navarro

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