The Musée Picasso brings together 300 works by Kurt Schwitters in a first major show in 30 years
Thirty years away, and finally a return. The Musée Picasso, in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris, hosts a major retrospective dedicated to Kurt Schwitters from 6 October 2026 to 7 February 2027. A central figure in European modern art, Schwitters is celebrated here with more than 300 works and archival materials, making this the first large-scale French exhibition devoted to him in over three decades.
An artist like no other at the heart of the Musée Picasso
Kurt Schwitters (1887,1948) defies easy categorisation. Painter, sculptor, poet, typographer and performer, he moved through his era refusing every label. Operating on the fringes of Dada, Constructivism and geometric abstraction, he founded his own movement, which he called Merz, built on the principle of transforming discarded objects into artistic compositions.
Newspaper scraps, used tickets, pieces of wood, rope, the detritus of everyday life: Schwitters turned these materials into poetic, harmonious works. This pioneering gesture, which anticipates the art of recycling and assemblage, is why he is now recognised as a direct influence on Pop Art and the American Neo-Dadaists, Robert Rauschenberg chief among them.
The exhibition, titled Kurt Schwitters. Le chaos-monde. 1918,1948, was born from a collaboration between the Paris museum and the MoMA in New York. This international partnership ensures a selection of works and archives of rare breadth, conceived to convey the full complexity of an artistic journey shaped by war and exile.
The Merzbau: an immersive reconstruction not to be missed
One of the most anticipated moments of the show is undoubtedly the presentation of a reconstruction of the Merzbau. This organic architectural structure, with its interlocking volumes, originally filled eight rooms of Schwitters’s house in Hanover. The Allied bombing raids of 1943 destroyed it, erasing this masterpiece of modern art for good.
It is thanks to the work of set designer Peter Bissegger and the artist’s son, Ernst Schwitters, carried out in the 1980s from period photographs, that Parisian audiences can now immerse themselves in this landmark spatial creation. The reconstruction offers a direct, physical encounter with a work that can no longer be seen any other way.
Schwitters and Picasso: two visions of the same revolution
The choice of the Musée Picasso as the venue for this retrospective is far from incidental. The exhibition draws out the formal correspondences between the two contemporaries. Both shared an obsession with experimentation, the deconstruction of traditional codes, and the introduction of real objects into the realm of painting and sculpture.
Rather than a chronological walkthrough, the museum has opted for a cross-disciplinary approach, weaving together different media and practices. This curatorial decision allows visitors to grasp the resonances between the two artists without ever reducing Schwitters to a mere counterpart of Picasso.
- Dates: 6 October 2026 to 7 February 2027
- Venue: Musée national Picasso-Paris, 3rd arrondissement
- Number of works: more than 300 paintings, sculptures, collages and archival materials
- Partner: MoMA, New York
- Highlight: reconstruction of the Merzbau by Peter Bissegger and Ernst Schwitters
A life shaped by exile and resilience
Schwitters’s story is also that of a man broken by history. Branded a “degenerate” artist by the Nazi regime, he was forced to flee Hanover in 1937, first to Norway, then to the United Kingdom. Despite extremely precarious living conditions and the loss of many works, he continued making art until his death in 1948.
This biographical dimension runs through the entire exhibition and lends an additional depth to the works on show at the Musée Picasso. Every assemblage, every collage carries within it the trace of a fractured era and an unrelenting will to create regardless.
An international symposium to extend the conversation
To go beyond the purely visual experience, the museum is partnering with Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and the Sprengel Museum in Hanover. On 12 and 13 November 2026, an international symposium titled “Kurt Schwitters: singulier, pluriel” will be held at the Sorbonne.
Discussions will focus on the legacy of his work, its connections with France, and the challenges of preserving his hybrid assemblages. This academic gathering offers a complementary way into Schwitters’s world, aimed at researchers and curious visitors alike who want to deepen their experience of the Musée Picasso exhibition.
