Sophie Taeuber-Arp with Dada Head, 1920
Sophie Taeuber-Arp is one of the most important abstract artists and designers of the 1920s and 1930s and a central figure of the post-WWI Dada movement. Her circle of friends and influence included artists Wassily Kandinsky, Joan Miró and Marcel Duchamp.
Personnages (Figures), Taeuber-Arp 1926
Taeuber-Arp taught textile design at the Zurich School of Applied Arts between 1916 and 1926.
She combined traditional crafts – drawing, painting, sculpture and textiles - with modernist abstraction, creating ‘Dada objects’ that challenged the boundaries separating art and design.
Formes élémentaires en composition verticale-horizontale, Taeuber-Arp, 1917
She designed costumes and masks and performed at the legendary Cabaret Voltaire.
Her pen drawings, gouaches and tapestries used simple, coloured, geometric shapes and forms in known as vertical-horizontal compositions.
Lignes d'été, Taeuber-Arp, 1942
From 1926, Taeuber-Arp designed avant-garde architectural interiors including designs for Aubette, the multi-cultural center in central Strasbourg, where her geometric art adorned multiple spaces including the café, restaurant, bar, tearoom, and cinema.
König Hirsch: Wachen (King Stag: Guards), Taeuber-Arp, 1918
Her last works, a series of pencil and ink drawings on paper called ‘Construction géométrique’, were created only three weeks before her accidental death in January 1943.
Construction géométrique (Geometric construction), Taeuber-Arp, 1942
Her multidisciplinary, diverse, and controversial work continues to inspire artists and designers around the world.