Installation view.
LONDON
.- One of the most innovative artists and designers of the 20th-century avant-garde, Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889-1943) challenged the borders between abstract art, design and craft. Tate Moderns major exhibition is the first in the UK to trace Taeuber-Arps accomplished career as a painter, architect, teacher, writer, and designer of textiles, marionettes and interiors. Bringing together over 200 objects from collections across Europe and America, the exhibition shows how she blazed a new path for the development of abstraction.
After studying fine and applied arts in Munich, Sophie Taeuber-Arp began her career in Zurich, an international hub for the avant-garde during the First World War. She took classes at Rudolf von Labans influential school of dance, and met her lifelong partner, artist and poet Jean (Hans) Arp. She became a successful textile practitioner and teacher while simultaneously experimenting with non-figurative art. Responding to the grid structure of textiles and the bold colours of vernacular culture, she created vivid works on paper and embroideries. Her work stood apart from the abstract art of her contemporaries by completely bypassing deconstruction of the figurative form. A selection of these works are shown side by side with decorative artworks including beaded bags, jewellery, rugs, pillowcases and tapestries to reflect the fluid way in which Taeuber-Arp worked concurrently across disciplines.