Jean Arp

Hans (Jean) Arp (September 16, 1886 – June 7, 1966) was a sculptor, painter, and poet.

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Arp was born in Strasbourg. The son of an Alsatian mother and a non-Alsatian German father, he was born during the brief period following the Franco-Prussian War when the area was known as Alsace-Lorraine after it had been returned to Germany by France. Following the return of Alsace to France at the end of World War I, French law determined that his name become Jean.

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In 1904, after leaving the ?cole des Arts et M?tiers in Strasbourg, he went to Paris where he published his poetry for the first time. From 1905 to 1907, Arp studied at the Kunstschule, Weimar, Germany and in 1908 went back to Paris, where he attended the Acad?mie Julian. In 1915, he moved to Switzerland, to take advantage of Swiss neutrality. Arp later told the story of how, when he was notified to report to the German embassy, he avoided being drafted into the army: he took the paperwork he had been given and, in the first blank, wrote the date. He then wrote the date in every other space as well, then drew a line beneath them and carefully added them up. He then took off all his clothes and went to hand in his paperwork. He was told to go home.

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Arp was a founding member of the Dada movement in Z?rich in 1916. In 1920, as Hans Arp, along with Max Ernst, and the social activist Alfred Gr?nwald, he set up the Cologne Dada group. However, in 1925 his work also appeared in the first exhibition of the surrealist group at the Galerie Pierre in Paris.

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In 1926, Arp moved to the Paris suburb of Meudon. In 1931, he broke with the Surrealism movement to found Abstraction-Cr?ation, working with the Paris-based group Abstraction-Cr?ation and the periodical, Transition.

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Throughout the 1930s and until the end of his life, he wrote and published essays and poetry. In 1942, he fled from his home in Meudon to escape German occupation and lived in Z?rich until the war ended.

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Arp visited New York City in 1949 for a solo exhibition at the Buchholz Gallery. In 1950, he was invited to execute a relief for the Harvard University Graduate Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts would also be commissioned to do a mural at the UNESCO building in Paris. In 1954, Arp won the Grand Prize for Sculpture at the Venice Biennale.

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In 1958, a retrospective of his work was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, followed by an exhibition at the Mus?e National d'Art Moderne, Paris, France, in 1962.

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The Mus?e d'art moderne et contemporain of Strasbourg houses many of his paintings and sculptures.

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Arp died in Basel, Switzerland.

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September 16: September 16 is the 259th day of the year (260th in leap years). There are 106 days remaining....

1886: 1886 is a common year starting on Friday (click on link to calendar)...

June 7: June 7 is the 158th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (159th in leap years), with 207 days remaining....

Jean Arp related Images and Photos (experimental)

Jean Kent	Jean Reno	Jean Marsh	Jean Marais
Jean Seberg	Jean Seberg	Jean Toomer	Jean Peters
Jean Borlin	Jean Parker	Jean Rogers	Jean Simmons