Hans (Jean) Arp

Born 1886 – Died 1966

Jean Arp was a sculptor, painter, and poet. Born in Strasbourg (France), in 1904 he left the local École des Arts et Métiers to go to Paris, where he published his poetry for the first time. From 1905 to 1907 Arp studied at the Kunstschule in Weimar, Germany. The following year he returned to Paris, where he attended the Académie Julian. Arp was a founding member of the Dada movement in Zürich, in 1916. In 1925 his work appeared in the first exhibition of the Surrealist group at the Galerie Pierre in Paris. In 1931 he broke with Surrealism to found Abstraction-Création. Throughout the 1930s and until the end of his life, he continued to write and publish essays and poetry. In 1942, he fled from his home in Meudon to escape the German occupation and lived in Zürich until the war ended. In 1954 he won the Grand Prize for Sculpture at the Venice Biennale.