NEW YORK, NY.- Iwan Wirth, President of Hauser & Wirth, today announced worldwide representation of the Estate of Sophie Taeuber-Arp.

Hauser & Wirth’s first exhibition devoted to Taeuber-Arp launches online on 11 June, followed by an exhibition in New York in 2021. This online exhibition presents 30 works dating from 1916 to 1942, alongside photography and material from the Arp Foundation (Stiftung Arp e.V.) archives, which shows the scope of Taeuber-Arp’s vision.

Taeuber-Arp will be the subject of a major retrospective exhibition which opens in March 2021 at Kunstmuseum Basel in Taeuber-Arp’s native Switzerland. ‘Sophie Taeuber-Arp: Living Abstraction’ will tour to Tate Modern in London, where it will be the first-ever survey of the artist’s work in the United Kingdom, and to MoMA in New York, the artist’s first major US exhibition in nearly 40 years.

Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889 – 1943) is one of the most important artists of the 20th century avant-garde and is considered a pioneer of Constructivist art. Reconciling extremes with confidence – Dada and Geometric Abstraction, fine art and utilitarian objects – Taeuber-Arp’s works boldly engaged with the intellectual context of international modernism. Through her multi-faceted approach to media, she challenged traditional hierarchies between fine and applied art, and asserted art’s urgent relevance to daily life. Taeuber-Arp defied categorization during her brief career through her work as a painter, sculptor, architect, performer, choreographer, teacher, writer, and designer of textiles, stage sets and interiors.

A new bilingual website, sophietaeuberarp.org, will be launched in summer 2020 to make the research materials of the foundation (and a catalogue raisonné in progress) available to scholars worldwide as an openly accessible online-database.

In working with the artist’s Foundation (Stiftung Arp e.V.), the shared goal is to foster deeper awareness of Sophie Taeuber-Arp’s oeuvre to wider audiences and new generations internationally through exhibitions, the commissioning of new scholarship, and by supporting the research and publication of the catalogue raisonné.

Iwan Wirth, President of Hauser & Wirth, remarks, ‘Sophie Taeuber-Arp is the great known, unknown artist of the 20th Century. Our relationship with the Arp Foundation (Stiftung Arp e.V.), which represents Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Hans Arp, has a ten-year history and is inextricably linked with the gallery’s Swiss heritage. We are greatly honored to now take on representation of the Estate of Sophie Taeuber-Arp, an artist who grew up close to my own childhood home. As custodians of her legacy we will sensitively work together to ensure that her audacious practice is not only understood and appreciated worldwide, but continues to be embraced by new generations of art historians, artists, and museums. Taeuber-Arp joins a strong tradition of avant-garde contemporaries at the gallery, including her husband and collaborator Hans Arp, Max Bill and Georges Vantongerloo. We are particularly excited to work on furthering Taeuber-Arp’s reputation to develop the incredible passion for the artist’s work that exists internationally.’

Engelbert Büning, Head of the Arp Foundation (Stiftung Arp e.V.) remarks, ‘As we start this new chapter we are delighted to work hand-in-hand with Hauser & Wirth to ensure that Sophie Taeuber-Arp’s creative voice continues to be heard. This important step is aligned with our mission to reach international audiences and make scholarship on her pioneering work more accessible. Hauser & Wirth is renowned for a first-class reputation in estate representation – their experience and expertise in this area makes the gallery the natural partner for us as we look to the future.’