SOPHIE TAEUBER-ARP AT THE TATE MODERN on August 8th, 2021

 

SOPHIE TAEUBER-ARP AT THE TATE MODERN

on August 8^th, 2021

 

 Several years ago, the Tate Modern attempted to shed light on Picasso’s muse Dora Maar.  This time it is the turn of Sophie Taeuber, formerly the wife of artist Hans Arp.  That is how she has been known, if at all.  Taeuber was born in Davos, Switzerland in 1889 and brought up by her mother, a widow.  Her artistic education was more eclectic than some, crossing over to applied art disciplines such as woodwork and textiles, insisting on the inter-relationship between fine art and applied art. 

The Tate Modern’s exhibition hardly attempts to join up the dots for us.  It presents Sophie Taeuber as if she is a newly discovered artist who is ‘very interesting’.  In fact, she was married to Jean (Hans) Arp, a much more famous and recognised artist.  Jean Arp’s work is not mentioned, simply the fact of her marriage to him and life in Zurich during the First World War.

Sophie Taeuber’s family left Davos and lived in Germany until the outbreak of the Great War when many artists and writers retreated into Switzerland to enjoy its famed neutrality.  It was in Zurich that the art movement known as Dada was created, apparently by Trsistan Tzara, a Romanian French poet, in the Café de la Terrasse in Zurich in 1916.  No one knows for sure what Dada means but it sounds like a child’s nonsense word.  The work of the Dadaists seemed like an indirect response to the insanity going on in Europe at the time.  The Dadaists were organised and did public gatherings, demonstrations, and publication of avante garde literature.  Dadaists included Andre Breton, Max Ernst, and Hans Richter.  The Dada movement seems to have been a precursor to Surrealism and other European avante-garde movements in the post-war ferment.

Sophie Taeuber was successively a performer, dancing to Hugo Ball’s sound poems at the Galerie Dada in 1917, creator of the Dada Head, featured in Tristan Tzara’s anthology Dadaglobe, and the creator of marionettes for an adaptation of Carlo Gozzi’s 18^th century play King Stag.  Gozzi was a Venetian playwright living in the 18^th century who attempted to revive interest in Commedia dell’arte.  In the early 20^th century transformations of his plays into operas had been successfully attempted by Sergei Prokofiev (The Love for Three Oranges) and Giacomo Puccini (Turandot).  Practical skills such as woodworking were synthesizing with skills derived from dance and body movement aesthetics.  The marionettes are presented as part of the exhibition, also emphasizing the tradition of interest in puppets and puppetry in central Europe at the time.  The adaptation of King Stag emphasized its modern, Freudian elements which were also important to the Dada movement.  At the same time Taeuber was also producing non-figurative artworks on paper and cross-stitching embroideries.  She was friends with the leading contemporary dancers Mary Wigman and Katja Wulff, pioneers of Expressionist dance in Germany and Switzerland.  Ball described her performance as ‘a dance full of flashes and edges, full of dazzling light and penetrating intensity.’

Tauber was preoccupied with applying the tenets of abstract art to the everyday world, using artistic principles to design practical objects, furnishings, and fashion.  She studied at the von Debschitz school in Munich in 1911 and at the School of Arts and Crafts in Hamburg from 1910 to 1914.  At the same time, she wrote to her sister, ‘furnishing rooms for an architect – wallpaper, rugs, upholstery, curtains and lamps, and perhaps even designing furniture – is what appeals most to me.’  She was a teacher at the Applied Arts Department of Zurich’s Trade School and published theoretical arguments in favour of her works such as Remarks on Instruction in Ornamental Design.  To signify her belief that applied art was just as important as fine art she began to sign her work which included cushion embroideries, beaded jewellery and designs for rugs and textiles.

Taeuber was clearly affected by the war and after it ended, she travelled throughout Europe and eventually decided to commute between Strasbourg and Zurich.  She became increasingly interested in architecture and interior design and was asked to redesign the Aubette building in Strassbourg in 1926 along with Arp and another collaborator, the Dutch artist Theo van Doesburg.  For the next few years Taeuber-Arp completed a variety of interior design jobs for private homes and a set of stained-glass windows was commissioned by the collector Andre Horn.  Eventually, Taeuber-Arp became a French citizen and purchased some land in Clamart, near Paris.  She designed her own house.  It was here that members of the international avante garde mixed.  Taeuber-Arp continued to work on furniture and interior design projects in the inter-war period. 

Taeuber-Arp now became a member of the Parisian avante garde and mixed with international figures like Wassily Kandinsky, Le Corbusier, Piet Mondrian, Franciska Clausen and Sonia Delauney in the abstract artists group Cercle et Carre.  Not all the members of Cercle et Carre were happy with the direction it was taking.  Franciska Clausen, for instance, felt that women were not taken seriously and that an underlying misogyny informed the group’s dynamics.  Works from this period include Composition a rectangles et cercles (1931, oil on canvas), Pointe sur pointe (1931, oil on canvas) and Cercles et barres (1934, oil on canvas).  Anyone familiar with the work of the above-mentioned artists can guess what these works are like.  A sceptic might say that they look like a game of dominoes photographed from above, but it is quite clear that a visual game is being alluded to.  Other artists who became known to Taeuber-Arp at this time were the American artist and sculptor Alexander Calder who had taken up residence in Paris.  The influence of Calder’s mobiles can be traced in works like Surgissant, tombant, adherent, volant (1934, oil on canvas).

In 1931 Taeuber-Arp visited Munich and observed the rise of the National Socialist movement.  She said, ‘these people are willingly narrowing their horizons and churning up a truly war-like atmosphere.’  She became increasingly identified with abstract, experimental art and moved from a preoccupation with modular structures to freer organic forms.  She collaborated with international exhibitions and ventured into graphic design and editorial work.  Wassily Kandinsky praised her work by saying, ‘To the beauty of the volume…is added the mysterious moving power of colour.’ 

Taeuber-Arp and Arp had to leave their home in Clamart after German troops entered Paris in June 1940.  They sought refuge in the south of France, moved frequently and could only use the lightest materials such as paper and pencils.  Taeuber-Arp had begun to assist her husband with the publication of several volumes of poetry, Shells and Umbrellas (1940) and Poems without First Names (1941).  Eventually Taeuber-Arp and Arp were granted visas to travel to Switzerland.  Taeuber-Arp was accidentally killed on 14 January 1943 when she was staying with friends and suffered carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a faulty stove.  She was 53.

PM at the Tate Modern August 2021