SOPHIE TAEUBER-ARP

Composition, ca. 1916–25
gouache and pencil on cardboard

When she began teaching at Zurich’s academy of applied arts in 1916, Sophie Taeuber-Arp focused on the creative design of everyday objects, with the goal of combining fine art and applied art. Many of the designs she created in those years were intended to be realized as pillows, carpets, and beaded objects. She often began by creating a number of small watercolors, which she could then recombine again and again in variable compositions. The exclusive use of geometric shapes shows that even these early works were developing an abstract pictorial language.