Sophie Taeuber Arp Pioneering Geometric Artists Honoured With Google Doodle

Sophie Taeuber Arp

Sophie Taeuber-Arp  one of the pioneering ‘Geometric’ artists along with her husband Jean Hans Arp has been honoured with Google Doodle.

Born in Davos, Switzerland ( 19 January 1889 – 13 January 1943) Taeuber-Arp was a painter, sculptor, and dancer. The fifth child of Prussian pharmacist Emil Taeuber and Sophie Taeuber-Krüsi. Her father died of tuberculosis when she was two years old, after which the family moved to Trogen, where her mother opened a pension. She began her art studies in her homeland, at the School of Applied Arts in St. Gallen (1906–1910). n 1915, at an exhibition at the Tanner Gallery, she met the Dada artist Jean Arp,[1] 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. Her textile and graphic works from around 1916 through the 1920s are among the earliest Constructivist works, along with those of Piet Mondrian and Kasimir Malevich. These sophisticated geometric abstractions reflect a subtle understanding of the interplay between colour and form. During this period, she was involved in the Zürich Dada movement, which centred 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 theatres. At the opening of the Galerie Dada in 1917, she danced to poetry by Hugo Ball whilst wearing a shamanic mask by Marcel Janco. A year later, she was a co-signer of the Zurich Dada Manifesto.

This is an interesting choice which celebrates this highly talented but obscure woman artist!

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