Jean (Hans) Arp
Untitled
Date 1926
Medium Oil on wood with wooden frame painted by the artist
Dimensions 72.4 x 102.6 x 2 cm
Inventory ID UID 102-024
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After his Dadaist reliefs, Jean Arp created simple forms, inspired by human and animal bodies. These forms were simplified still further until, around 1925, they became restrained and fairly regular interlinking circles, in just three colours. Sometimes Arp cut out one of the circles from cardboard (as in Balcon I, 1925). The work cannot be merely seen as an abstract composition. There is an element of fantasy and a subject can be identified. The frame was made and painted by the artist himself. AC
Collection of Alfred Lickteig, Strasbourg, for whom Arp wrote a poem published in the De Stijl magazine, in 1928; Galerie 1900-2000, Paris; acquired in 1997.