ARP, Jean (Arp Jean)

(1887-1966)
Also, Hans Arp, one of the founders of abstract sculpture and a founder of Dada - directions in art, was used as a means of expressing the elements of nonsense and absurdity. Arp had worked in the field of literature, his poetry, epigrams, critical works and thoughts have been widely. Alsatian Arp wrote in French and German. Throughout his life he used two names - Jean and Hans (the second - his real name, because in 1887 Alsace belonged to Germany).
Jean Arp was born in Strasbourg on September 16, 1887. He studied in Weimar and Paris and in 1912 was already acquainted with the leading European artists, including members of the group 'Blue Rider', which was led by Vasily Kandinsky and Paul Klee.

In 1915 Arp moved to Zurich, where he lived until the end of the war, where he first showed at the exhibition its geometrical collages. Many of them were carried out in collaboration with the artist Sophie Taeuber, whom he married in 1922. In 1916 in Zurich, Arp founded the group 'Dada'. Abstract wooden reliefs, . created by the artist, . seem funny, game, . playful nature of the works is characteristic of Dada, . but for ostentatious frivolity, there are always a complex intellectual activity and deep creative insight,
. In 1919-1920, Jean Arp and Max Ernst led a group of German Dadaists in Cologne. Then Arp moved to Paris and in 1925 participated in the first Surrealist exhibition held at Galerie Pierre. In 1930 he created the first three-dimensional sculptures of wood and soon began working in plaster, bronze and stone.

For the style of Jean Arp characterized by the use of soft, clear and simple, made from natural forms, such as clouds, leaves, the human body.

In 1958 the Museum of Modern Art in New York held a retrospective exhibition of works by Arp. Among the artworks presented Squares were placed under the laws of probability (Collage, 1916-1917); table with egg (wood relief, 1922), human concretion (concrete, 1935) and Ptolemy (limestone, 1953). The artist took part in the decoration of the building by UNESCO in Paris. Arp died in Basel, June 7, 1966.