Swiss artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp
(1889-1943) was a pioneer of 20th-century avant-garde. Remarkably
versatile and immensely gifted, she produced an oeuvre that encompasses
the entire range of the modernist movement from applied and fine art and
dance to architecture, interior design, and teaching.


Equlibre,
created in 1931, marks the beginning of Taeuber-Arp's career as an
accomplished painter. She moves away from figuration to focus on shape
and colour. Circle, square, and rectangle define her future vocabulary.
While in her earlier textiles she used multiple shades and hues, she now
reduces her palette to primary colours alongside black and white,
signalling a markedly changed sense of colour.


The painting's
posthumous title emphasises Taeuber-Arp's constant striving for an ideal
balance of colour, shape, and indeed all the elements in her paintings.
From here, she sets out to explore movement, circles, and spaces, and
later gradations and lines. Equilibre, a
landmark of Taeuber-Arp's oeuvre, looks ahead to her future subject
matter, while at the same time referencing her earlier work.


Text in English and German.