Sophie Taeuber-Arp

Life & Legacy

Sophie Henriette Gertrud Taeuber-Arp (; 19 January 1889 – 14 January 1943) was a Swiss artist, painter, sculptor, textile designer, furniture and interior designer, architect, and dancer.
Born in 1889 in Davos and raised in Trogen, Switzerland, she attended a trade school in St. Gallen and, later, art schools in Germany, before moving back to Switzerland during the First World War. At an exhibition in 1915, she met for the first time the German-French artist Jean Arp, whom she married shortly after. It was during these years that they became associated with the Dada movement, which emerged in 1916, and Taeuber-Arp's most famous works, such as Dada Head (Tête Dada, 1920), date from these years. They moved to France in 1926, where they stayed until the invasion of France during the Second World War, at the event of which they went back to Switzerland. In 1943, she died in an accident with a leaking gas stove.
Despite having largely been overlooked since her death, she is considered one of the most important artists of concrete art and geometric abstraction of the 20th century.