A Year With Kurt Schwitters 2021-2022 - catalogue

Award winning artist Anthony Padgett's book of over 50 artworks in response to International artist Kurt Schwitters who spent his final year in the Lake District. Schwitters is well know for his "Merz" collage art which used discarded items. Next year marks the 75th anniversary of Schwitters' death, in Kendal. Padgett explores this and also how Schwitters rose to fame through his Dada poetry, and how he was on the Romantic and expressionist side of Dadaism and Constructivist. This, coupled with his love of poetry and landscape painting, links him to the Lake District and the tradition of William Wordsworth. Anthony D Padgett worked at Dove Cottage, Grasmere, in the 1990s and whose sculptures of poets and artists like Wilfred Owen, Vincent Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso are sited in key locations in the UK and abroad. Said Anthony "I have really enjoyed creating artworks around Schwitters and am keen to share some insights into the man. He was a polymath who combined art, poetry, typography, architecture and performance. It means there is plenty of scope to explore and make something really interesting and original." "A Year with Kurt Schwitters" was launched at the historic family home of Wordsworth at the Rydal Mount Spring Fair. It continued with an exhibition at Ambleside Library in June and then be at Kendal Library, he showed new painting, collage, sculpture and poetry and his collection of rare Schwitters books. With book signing and Artist's Talk "The Romantic Art & Poetry of Kurt Schwitters" Thursday 22nd September 2022 - 3-4.30pm A month after the exhibition the culmination of the "year" will be a "Dada Merz Ball" at St Mary's Civic Hall (Ambleside) LA22 9DH, on 15th October at 7.30pm. Schwitters loved to dance and Padgett taught 1920s Tango and Charleston in the day with live music in the evening from the High Society Jazz Band. The was also be a very special event to mark the project.