Image: Merzbild Einunddreissig, Kurt Schwitters (1920), Huile, papier, bois, métal, tissu et ouate sur carton montés sur châssis en bois, Sprengel Museum Hannover (Hanovre)
The Musée national Picasso-Paris will present ‘Kurt Schwitters. Le chaos-monde 1918–1948’, a major retrospective of the German artist, from 6 October 2026 to 7 February 2027. The exhibition will bring together more than 300 works and documents at the Paris museum, including paintings, sculptures, assemblages, collages, drawings, photographs, books and archival material.
Schwitters (1887–1948) is presented by the museum as an artist who stood apart while engaging with several of the major artistic currents of his time, including Dada, Constructivism and the German abstract scene. According to the museum, his work has not been shown in France for more than thirty years. The retrospective will cover the period from 1918 to 1948, tracing an artistic practice marked by experimentation across media and by the transformation of materials associated with everyday life.
The presentation is supported exclusively by OPmobility. The exhibition will include works spanning Schwitters’s principal forms of production, from painting and sculpture to collage, assemblage, drawing, photography and artists’ books. The museum’s announcement also identifies notebooks and archives among the material assembled, extending the presentation beyond finished artworks to include documents related to the artist’s wider practice.
According to the Musée national Picasso-Paris, the exhibition will examine links between Schwitters’s work and Picasso’s, particularly their shared interest in experimentation, assemblage and the transformation of ordinary materials. This dialogue places the retrospective within the institutional context of a museum devoted to Picasso and its collection, which the museum describes as the largest in the world dedicated to the artist.
The Schwitters exhibition follows a programme at the Paris museum that has included presentations devoted to modern and contemporary artists in relation to Picasso’s reception and legacy. The museum’s 2026 programme also includes ‘Henry Taylor. Where thoughts provoke’, a retrospective running from 8 April to 6 September 2026, before the Schwitters exhibition opens in October. These other programme details are separate from the Schwitters retrospective.
The Musée national Picasso-Paris is located at 5 rue de Thorigny in the Marais, in the Hôtel Salé, the historic building that houses the museum. ‘Kurt Schwitters. Le chaos-monde 1918–1948’ will remain on view there from 6 October 2026 through 7 February 2027.
