Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including Dadaism, constructivism, surrealism, poetry, sound, painting, sculpture, graphic design, typography, and what came to be known as installation art.

Their first son, Gerd, died within a week of birth, 9 September 1916; their second, Ernst, was born on 16 November 1918, and was to remain close to his father for the rest of his life, up to and including a shared exile in Britain together.

In 1918, his art was to change dramatically as a direct consequence of Germany's economic, political, and military collapse at the end of the First World War.

[8] This resulted in meetings with members of the Berlin avant-garde, including Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch, and Jean Arp in the autumn of 1918.

[14] Hausmann claimed that Richard Huelsenbeck rejected the application because of Schwitters's links to Der Sturm and to Expressionism in general, which were seen by the Dadaists as hopelessly romantic and obsessed with aesthetics.

Whilst his work was far less political than key figures in Berlin Dada, such as George Grosz and John Heartfield, he would remain close friends with various members, including Hannah Höch and Raoul Hausmann, for the rest of his career.

From this co-operation several new works originated, where the collage technique was applied to woodwork, by incorporating several kinds of wood as a means to delineate images and letters.

His friendship around this time with El Lissitzky proved particularly influential, and Merz pictures in this period show the direct influence of Constructivism.

After the demise of the Der Sturm gallery in 1924 he ran an advertising agency named Merzwerbe, which held the accounts for Pelikan inks and Bahlsen biscuits, amongst others, and became the official typographer for Hanover town council between 1929 and 1934.

[30] In a manner similar to the typographic experimentation by Herbert Bayer at the Bauhaus, and Jan Tschichold's Die neue Typographie, Schwitters experimented with the creation of a new more phonetic alphabet in 1927.

This took place very gradually; work started in about 1923, the first room was finished in 1933, and Schwitters subsequently extended the Merzbau to other areas of the house until he fled to Norway in early 1937.

Early photos show the Merzbau with a grotto-like surface and various columns and sculptures, possibly referring to similar pieces by Dadaists, including the Great Plasto-Dio-Dada-Drama by Johannes Baader, shown at the first International Dada Fair, Berlin, 1920.

By the time his close friends Christof and Luise Spengemann and their son Walter were arrested by the Gestapo in August 1936[37] the situation had clearly become perilous.

On 2 January 1937 Schwitters, wanted for an "interview" with the Gestapo,[38] fled to Norway to join his son Ernst, who had already left Germany on 26 December 1936.

The joint celebrations for his mother Henriette's 80th birthday and his son Ernst's engagement, held in Oslo on 2 June 1939, would be the last time the two met.

[39] Following Nazi Germany's invasion of Norway, Schwitters was amongst a number of German citizens who were interned by the Norwegian authorities at Vågan Folk High School [no] in Kabelvåg on the Lofoten Islands,[40] Following his release, Schwitters fled to Leith in Scotland with his son and daughter-in-law on the Norwegian patrol vessel Fridtjof Nansen between 8 and 18 June 1940.

There was a shortage of art supplies there – at least during the early days of the camp's existence – which meant that the internees had to be resourceful to obtain the materials they needed: they would mix brick dust with sardine oil for paint, dig up clay for sculpture whilst out on walks, and rip up the linoleum floors to make cuttings which they then pressed through the clothes mangle to make linocut prints.

The porridge had developed mildew and the statues were covered with greenish hair and bluish excrements of an unknown type of bacteria."

Fellow internees would later recall fondly his curious habits of sleeping under his bed and barking like a dog, as well as his regular Dadaist readings and performances.

Gretel Hinrichsen quoted in The Telegraph[52]In London he made contact with and mixed with a range of artists, including Naum Gabo, László Moholy-Nagy and Ben Nicholson.

Pictures such as Small Merzpicture With Many Parts 1945–6,[54] for example, used objects found on a beach, including pebbles and smooth shards of porcelain.

Having been forced by a lack of other income to paint portraits and popularist landscape pictures suitable for sale to the local residents and tourists, Schwitters received notification shortly before his 60th birthday that he had been awarded a £1,000 fellowship to be transferred to him via the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in order to enable him to repair or re-create his previous Merz constructions in Germany or Norway.

The stone remains as a memorial even though his body was disinterred and reburied in the Stadtfriedhof Engesohde [de] in Hanover in 1970, the grave being marked with a marble copy of his 1929 sculpture Die Herbstzeitlose.

[57][58] [59] In 2011 the barn, but not the artwork inside it, was reconstructed in the front courtyard of the Royal Academy in London as part of its exhibition Modern British Sculpture.

[60] Many artists have cited Schwitters as a major influence, including Ed Ruscha,[61] Robert Rauschenberg,[62] Damien Hirst,[63] Al Hansen,[64] Anne Ryan, and Arman.

[65] "The language of Merz now finds common acceptance and today there is scarcely an artist working with materials other than paint who does not refer to Schwitters in some way.

Gwendolyn Webster[66] Schwitters's Ja-Was?-Bild (1920), an abstract work made of oil, paper, cardboard, fabric, wood and nails, was sold £13.9 million at Christie's London in 2014.

[67] Schwitters's son, Ernst, largely entrusted the artistic estate of his father to Gilbert Lloyd, director of the Marlborough Gallery.

However, Ernst fell victim to a crippling stroke in 1995, moving control of the estate as a whole to Kurt's grandson, Bengt Schwitters.

Controversy erupted when Bengt, who has said he has "no interest in art and his grandfather's works", terminated the standing agreement between the family and the Marlborough Gallery.