Meret Oppenheim

Meret Oppenheim (1913-1985) is one of the most recognized twentieth-century artists: an almost legendary figure able to stand out in a mainly male-dominated Surrealist art scene while developing her own highly personal artistic practice.

This catalogue presents her entire career, from the 1930s to her late works. It reveals the intense personal and creative network of relationships she nurtured with her older and often already famous peers during her time in Paris. Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Hans Arp, and others are also documented in this publication through some of their most significant works.

What emerges, above all, is the extent to which the artist influenced the Surrealist vocabulary. Thanks to her personality and allure, objects turn into fetishes, oneiric and erotic fantasies intermingle, and women are seen as innocent or evil, enveloped in mysterious nature.

After the war, Meret Oppenheim conducted her investigations—ranging from figurativism to abstraction, from assemblage to painting—while eluding all attempts at categorization. Her creative freedom and the extraordinary evocative power of her works have made her a key figure for many generations of artists, as can be seen here through parallels with creations by Daniel Spoerri, Birgit Jürgenssen, Robert Gober, and Mona Hatoum.