Meet the Artist: Sophie Taeuber-Arp

Description

Meet the Artist: Sophie Taeuber- Arp

An Art Activity Book

written by Zoé Whitley, illustrated by Lesley Barnes

(Tate)

Hugo Ball said of our subject, that she was ‘full of inventiveness… bizarreness’. It seems as we Meet the Artist: Sophie Taeuber-Arp, that we are encountering somebody who seized every opportunity.

For example, she created a cardboard hat with streamers to wear to a friend’s party. Then again, she was a dancer, entranced by movement and the fun of the show. Thereafter, she invented ‘bold costumes for carnivals‘. What’s more Sophie was a member of the Dada movement. It  believed in ‘creating brand new meanings for what art could be‘. Thereafter, they made words into pictures and poems without words. Yet this Dada-is went further in her craft. Her embroidery work was of such intricately constructed shapes and colours that her husband compared her to a bricklayer!

Alongside a lifeline of this artist’s creations, Zoé Whitley and Lesley Barnes invite young artists to create their own works of arts, employing the methods described. Therefore we learn about Sophie’s weaving, which leads to an instruction to create a wall hanging. Thereafter, we read of the stained glass windows imagined and created by Sophie ahead of an activity to create our own.

Meet the Artist: Sophie Taeuber-Arp is part of a superb Tate series that includes Meet the Artist David Hockney and Meet the Artist Frank Bowling. What’s more, it expands into other movements, with Meet the Artist The Pre-Raphaelites, allowing readers to build an understanding of different styles, motivations and figures.