“The Museum of Modern Art presents Sophie Taeuber- Arp: Living Abstraction, the first major US exhibition in 40 years to survey this multifaceted abstract artist’s innovative and wide-ranging body of work. The exhibition explores the artist’s interdisciplinary approach to abstraction through some 300 works assembled from over 50 public and private collections in Europe and the US, including textiles, beadwork, polychrome marionettes, architectural and interior designs, stained glass windows, works on paper, paintings, and relief sculptures.” — MoMA

“With this exhibition, we aim to advance the understanding of what abstraction meant to Taeuber-Arp, and of how she contributed to its history through her steady commitment to innovation and experimentation,” said Umland. “The model she provides of a ‘living abstraction’—by which we mean one that relates to the body, to the applied arts, to architectural interiors, and to her contemporary circumstances—encourages a more open-ended and generative approach to the history of modern art.”

Installation views of Sophie Taeuber-Arp: Living Abstraction, on view from November 21, 2021 through March 12, 2022 at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photos: Jonathan Muzikar.

Sophie Taeuber-Arp: Living Abstraction is organized by The Museum of Modern Art, Kunstmuseum Basel, and Tate Modern, by Anne Umland, the Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture, MoMA; Walburga Krupp, independent curator; Eva Reifert, Curator of Nineteenth-Century and Modern Art, Kunstmuseum Basel; and Natalia Sidlina, Curator, International Art, Tate Modern, London; with Laura Braverman, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Painting and Sculpture, MoMA.

Title image: Sophie Taeuber-Arp. Animated Circle Picture. 1935. Oil on canvas. 19 7/8 × 25 5/8″ (50.5 × 65.1 cm). Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, N.Y. Charles Clifton Fund. Courtesy Albright-Knox Art Gallery, photo Brenda Bieger. 

Images courtesy The Museum of Modern Art.