Post by Suzy Wade

Jean Arp Jean Arp was of French Alsatian and German ancestry and, thus, his parents gave him both French and German names. He began training as an artist in 1900 in his native Strasbourg and later studied in 'Weimar' Germany and at the 'Académie Julian’ in Paris. He went to Switzerland in 1909 and in 1911 in Weggis, near Lucerne, he cofounded ‘Der Moderne Bund’ (‘The Modern Alliance’) an association of artists dedicated to modern art. Arp traveled to Munich in 1912, where he met Wassily Kandinsky and through him became briefly associated with the Expressionist artists’ group 'Der Blaue Reiter' (‘The Blue Rider’). He also connected with 'Der Sturm' in Berlin and exhibited with them in 1913. Arp returned to Paris in 1914 and befriended Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso and Sonia and Robert Delaunay, as well as the writer Max Jacob. During World War I, Arp took refuge in Zürich, where he became one of the founders of the 'Dada' movement in early 1916. Soon after arriving in Zürich, he met artist Sophie Taeuber, who became his primary collaborator and whom he married in 1922. The two artists worked with nontraditional media and together created nonrepresentational collages (called Duo-Collages) and embroidered pieces.