| Sophie Taeuber-Arp | |
|---|---|
| Born | 19 January 1889 Davos, Switzerland |
| Died | 13 January 1943 (aged 53) Switzerland |
| Nationality | Swiss |
| Field | Sculpture, Painting |
| Training | School of Applied Arts, St. Gallen |
| Movement | Constructivism, Dada |
Sophie Taeuber-Arp ( /ˈtɔɪbər ˈɑrp/; 19 January 1889 - 13 January 1943) was a Swiss artist, painter and sculptor.
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Born in Davos, Switzerland, Sophie Täuber began her art studies in her homeland, at the School of Applied Arts in St. Gallen (1908–1910). She then moved on to the workshop of Wilhelm von Debschits in Munich, where she studied in 1911 and again in 1913; in between, she studied for a year at the School of Arts and Crafts in Hamburg. In 1916, she attended the Laban School of Dance in Zurich.
In 1915 she met the Dada artist Jean Arp, with whom she was to collaborate on numerous joint projects until her death in 1943. They married in 1922 and she changed her last name to Taeuber-Arp.
Taeuber-Arp taught weaving and other textile arts at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts from 1916 to 1929. During this period, she was involved in the Zürich Dada movement, which centered on the Cabaret Voltaire. She took part in Dada-inspired performances as a dancer, choreographer, and puppeteer; and she designed puppets, costumes, and sets for performances at the Cabaret Voltaire as well as for other Swiss and French theaters. She also made a number of sculptural works, such as a set of abstract "Dada Heads" of turned, polychromed wood. With their witty resemblance to the ubiquitous small stands used by hatmakers, they typified her elegant synthesis of the fine and applied arts. Her textile and graphic works from the 1920s are among the most sophisticated geometric abstractions of the early Modernist period, reflecting a subtle understanding of the interplay between color and form.
From the late 1920s, she lived in Paris and continued experimenting with design. Her skills developed into large-scale interior design when she was commissioned to create a radically Constructivist interior for the Café de l'Aubette – a project on which Jean Arp and de Stijl artist Theo van Doesburg eventually joined her as collaborators.
In 1927 she co-authored a book entitled Design and Textile Arts with Blanche Gauchet. In the 1930s, she was a member of the group Cercle et Carré, a standard-bearer of nonfigurative art, and its successor, the Abstraction-Création group; and in the late 1930s she founded a Constructivist review, Plastique (Plastic) in Paris.
In 1928, Taeuber-Arp and Arp moved to Meudon-Val Fleury, outside of Paris, where she designed their new house and some of its furnishings. In 1940, they fled Paris ahead of the German invasion and moved to Grasse in Southern France, where they created an art colony with Sonia Delaunay and other artists. The colony was active from 1941 to 1943, when during a visit to Switzerland, Taeuber-Arp died, in an accident with a stove.
Taeuber-Arp took part in numerous exhibitions during her relatively short life. For example, she was included in the first Carré exhibition at the Galeries 23 (Paris) in 1930, along with other notable early 20th-century modernists. Her reputation has grown slowly but steadily, and in 1981 the Museum of Modern Art (New York) mounted a retrospective of her work that subsequently traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), the Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), and the Musée d'Art Contemporain (Montreal).
She has been depicted on Swiss-issued banknotes denominated at 50 Swiss francs since 1995.