In Hannover, Dada was the work of a single artist, Kurt Schwitters (1887 - 1948). The scope of his work, which continued long after and far beyond Dadaism, and his role on the international art scene make him one of the most important figures in 20th century art. Although Schwitters had numerous ties with the Berlin artists, he remained more or less on the fringes of "official" Dadaism, his activities being far less politically oriented than those of such artists as Grosz and Heartfield [Plus there is the issue of Schwitters never being granted full membership into Berlin's 'Club Dada' - largely due to Huelsenbeck's personal dislike of Schwitters; Huelsenbeck described Schwitter's works as being 'too bourgeois' - ed.].

In 1919, following a period of Expressionist and Cubo-futurist influence, Schwitters created a new and original kind of art he called "Merz," a meaningless group of letters extracted from the word "Kommerzbank" (Commercebank), the middle syllable of which the artist cut out of a piece of printed matter. "Merz" eventually came to designate all of the forms of artistic expression Schwitters utilized. A painter and sculptor, Schwitters was also an editor and typographer; he realized environments, published manifestoes, wrote plays, and composed poems which, from Anna Blume to the Ursonate establish his place as one of the major poets of the 20th century. His work was constantly evolving, his production abundant. He was in close contact with Germany's artistic circles (unlike the Berlin Dadaists, he had dealings with Herwarth Walden, published in the review Der Sturm, and exhibited his works in the gallery of the same name) and kept abreast of the major international trends (both Theo van Doesburg and El Lissitzky were friends of his). These protean creations and activities allowed him to erect an exemplary artistic career that contrasts completely with the careers of such artists as Grosz, Hausmann, and Baader, whose works, by comparison, strike one as singularly limited or fortuitous.

Schwitters expressed himself primarily in collage, of which he was, after Picasso, the greatest master in the history of art. From 1919 to 1923, his works were often large in size. He was still painting in oil on canvas or a wood support, to which he incorporated all kinds of scrap materials (torn-up paper, undulated cardboard, string, fabric, pieces of wood or old metal, and a variety of objects). At this time, Schwitters would introduce himself by saying, "I'm a painter; I nail my pictures."

Merz art represents nothing: Schwitters' works are always nonfigurative. In Separated Forces (1920, Bern, Kunstmuseum), the different materials the work is composed of - including the string stretched across it - act as traditional touches of color. The diagonal composition, use of chiaroscuro, and decomposition of form, however, clearly show the dual influence that Expressionism and Cubo-futurism had exerted on Schwitters. These influences, along with the use of collage, led to the creation of a totally original form of expression. Schwitters, who had used the assemblage technique to elaborate particularly derisory "sculptures" such as The Holy Affliction (c. 1920, destroyed) - sculptures which do, however, have a certain poetry about them, in spite of their provocative and humorous character - gradually abandoned oil painting and the use of mixed materials to express himself in collages made entirely of paper cut-outs. Partly due to the origin of the scraps the artist used, these works got smaller and smaller in size; and, as they shrunk, their compositions grew progressively simpler, as in Mz 394 Pinakothek (1922, London, Marlborough Gallery). Given the artists unfailing sense of forms and their utilization, it is not surprising that his creations are extraordinarily varied. In the tradition of collage inaugurated by Picasso - e.g., his Bottle of Suze (Paris, Musée national d'art moderne) with its "un coup de thé," a pun on Mallarmé's famous verse - the texts, words, numbers, and letters found in these collages implicate reading to such an extend that some of them can also be considered poems: e.g., Das Undbildl (1919, Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie), in which the word "Und" (German for 'and') resonates so strongly, and the numerous inscriptions in Mz 231, Miss Blanche (1923, Düsseldorf, W. Schmalenbach Collection). Conversely, Schwitters' poetry owes a great deal to his experimentation in the field of painting. His 1922 Gesetztes Bildgedicht (Set Poem of Pictures), a "composed picture-poem" of capital vowels and consonants arranged on an orthogonal grid inside a square, is a visual poem. Cut-outs and collage were even used directly in Schwitters' experiments with poetry. His Pornographic i-Poem, published in 1923, was obtained by cutting up a nursery rhyme found in a children's book: Schwitters cut the page in half lengthways, keeping only the left side, to which he added a text explaining what he had done. He thus mingled forms and words, painting and poetry, letters and typography in an effort to create a total work of art.

Schwitters often exchanged ideas with Theo van Doesburg, who also wrote concrete poetry and even turned up in Dadaist circles using the pseudonym I.K. Bonset.