ARP

Franco-Swiss sculptor, painter, and poet Hans Arp (1887-1966) was a co-founder of Dadaism and participated in the activities of the Surrealist circle of Paris in the late 1920s. This volume offers a probing study of the artist. The illustrations include his paintings, graphics, collages, papiers déchirés, sculpture, and reliefs. Drawn to various aspects of expression, Arp made his most important artistic contribution in sculpture. During the 1930s he evolved in sculpture. During the 1930s he evolved a series of works of remarkable purity and concentration from very simple motifs — a torso, a bud, a column. To these solid forms, with their undulating contours and dense volumes, he added, after 1959, hollowed bronzes cut from smooth, flat slabs of metal. Always open to revolutionary ideas, always pouring his creative power into new forms, Arp was attracted by current movements, but not at all interested in being fashionable. An outstanding example of the free artist, independent and open-minded, Arp devoted most of his life to refining his concept of his artistic vocabulary: the fusion of human and natural elements into organic shapes. pp. 128 #0820 (School art department on cover and prelim.)