Méret Oppenheim

Meret Oppenheim Elizabeth ( born October 6, 1913 in Charlottenburg, Berlin today, † November 15, 1985 in Basel) was a German -Swiss artist and poet. She was one of the most important representatives of the magical surrealism.

Life

Meret Oppenheim was born in 1913 as a child of the Hamburg doctor Erich Alfons Oppenheim and his Swiss wife Eva Wenger, a daughter of Lisa Wenger. It was named after Gottfried Keller Meretlein from the Green Henry. Meret was raised Protestant. During the First World War she moved with her mother to Delémont into the house of the grandparents. From 1918 to 1932, the now grown to three children family lived in rocks in southwestern Germany near the Swiss border.

After graduating from elementary school Meret Oppenheim attended high school in Schopfheim, a private school in Zell, the Rudolf Steiner School in Basel, the Moravian boarding school for girls in King Field in the Black Forest and the Upper School in Lörrach. Merets favorite subjects were German, history, drawing and natural history. The drawings in her math book indicated early on their way, and she wanted to be a painter.

Even her grandmother Lisa Wenger had visited in the Dusseldorf Art Academy and was a painter and children's book author. So Meret Oppenheim came early in contact with artists, as well as with the writer Hermann Hesse, who was married to her aunt Ruth Wenger several years. During her youth, she became friends with the literature of Goethe, the Romantics, Gottfried Keller, Rilke and Hesse.

In 1931 she decided to also become an artist. She started in 1933 with the fellow painter Irène Zurkinden to Paris. There she met Alberto Giacometti and Hans Arp know, who were fascinated by her work and invited her to exhibit at the Salon des Surindépendants. In the fall of 1933, she met Max Ernst, with whom she had a continuing into next year love affair. Man Ray photographed her in 1933 in the image cycle Érotique voilée, earning her the reputation of " Surrealist muse " earned. During this period, in which they also frequented the circles of André Breton and Marcel Duchamp, created some art objects. Among the Déjeuner were en fourrure ( " Breakfast in Fur " ) from 1936 - a fur flavored coffee cup ( with saucer and spoon ), at the London International Surrealist Exhibition was shown in the same year - and Ma governess ( " My nanny " ) acquired by Alfred Barr, Jr. for the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

In order to bridge a financial losing streak, they made ​​1936 fashion designs. This was followed by a creative crisis. She returned to Switzerland, had contact with the anti-fascist group of artists group 33 and attended for two years trade school to improve their technical skills. 1939 Oppenheim participated in an exhibition of fantastic furniture and showed there including a table with bird feet.

In 1949 she married Wolfgang La Roche. With him she lived until his death in 1967 in Bern. 1954 was overcome its crisis, and she moved into her own studio. 1956 created costumes and masks for Daniel Spoerri 's production of Picasso's play As you pack wishes on the tail.

Starting in 1958, began her intensive work, while grip Oppenheim often resort to sketches, designs and ideas of their time in Paris. In 1967 she had a retrospective at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. From 1972 she lived and worked alternately in Paris and Bern.

1974 and 1975 they had more retrospectives in museums in Stockholm, Winterthur and Duisburg. In 1974 she was awarded the art prize of the city of Basel. In 1981 a publication of her poems with serigraphs titled Zanzibar, and it joined a similar job with the title Caroline.

1982 Meret Oppenheim was awarded the grand prize of the city of Berlin, and she took part in documenta 7 in Kassel part. 1983 created by their Oppenheim fountain was inaugurated on the orphanage in Berne, and in 1985 they created a fountain sculpture for the Jardins de l' ancienne école Polytechnique in Paris.

Appeared in 1984 in the Art Revue HOLE No. 4, a work of Meret Oppenheim, for the special edition, she created the original graphic with the imprint of their own hand.

Shortly before her death she was a member of the Academy of Arts in Berlin. On 15 November 1985, the day of the opening to her book Caroline, died Meret Oppenheim.

Honors

In Basel, the construction of the footbridge at the SBB railway station was completed in 2003 and the street you named in honor including " Meret Oppenheim -Strasse ". The Swiss art prize Prix Meret Oppenheim is also named after her.

At her 100th birthday in 2013 was a retrospective at the Martin- Gropius-Bau place in her hometown of Berlin, which ran from August 16, 2013 to January 6, 2014. Also Basel honored the artist on this occasion with many events and exhibitions.

Works

• Déjeuner en fourrure ( " Breakfast in Fur "). 1936, Museum of Modern Art, New York
• Ma governess - my nurse - my nanny. 1936, Museum of Modern Art, New York
• Le couple ( " The couple " )
• Table with bird feet. 1939, private collection
• Miss Gardénia
• The squirrel
• The Spring Festival
• Enchantment. Kunstmuseum Bern
• The Spiral ( The course of nature). Sculpture fountain, Montagne Ste Geneviève, Paris
• Illustrations to Lisa Wenger But, but Kristinli. Swiss youth written work in 1935, SJW Magazine No. 48 Reprint 2006, ISBN 3-7269-0520-0.

Quotes

" Freedom is not given, they must take. "