22.5 x 31.5 cm

ISBN 978-3-85881-196-7

“I think people will have said enough to you about serious things, and so I am going to talk to you about what I feel is valuable, and that people think too little of, about cheerfulness and, something that is part of it as well, not being afraid about problems in life, but finding a natural solution for them.” Sophie Taeuber-Arp, 1937

Swiss-born artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889–1943) ranks among the pioneers of the classical avant-garde in the first half of the twentieth century. Addressing her art means inexorably falling under the spell of an extraordinary personality. Her work covers the universal range of the modernist movement, from applied and fine art to dance and architecture, from interior design to teaching. This richly illustrated volume chronicles Taeuber-Arp’s multifaceted career—with an emphasis on her design and architectural work.
Featuring rarely seen architectural drawings and furniture designs, Sophie Taeuber-Arp traces the artist’s life from her beginnings as a dance student of Rudolf von Laban and her involvement in the Dada movement in Zürich, to her marriage to French writer and artist Jean Arp and her subsequent association with the Swiss Werkbund, to her eventual flight from the Nazis in occupied France and return to Switzerland. Essays by prominent curators, architects, and art historians, including Eva Afuhs, Martin Heller, Brigitte Maier, and Arthur Rüegg, place Taeuber-Arp’s career in context, making Sophie Taeuber-Arp the definitive book on this extraordinary modernist figure.

The book was published to coincide with an exhibition at the Museum Bellerive in Zürich.