(b Strassburg, Germany [now Strasbourg, France], 16 Sept 1886; d Basle, Switzerland, 7 June 1966). French sculptor, painter, collagist, printmaker and poet of German birth. The son of a German father and French Alsatian mother, he developed a cosmopolitan outlook from an early age and as a mature artist maintained close contact with the avant-garde throughout Europe. He was a pioneer of abstract art and one of the founders of Dada in Zurich, but he also participated actively in both Surrealism and Constructivism. While he prefigured junk art and the Fluxus movement in his incorporation of waste material, it was through his investigation of biomorphism and of chance and accident that he proved especially influential on later 20th-century art in liberating unconscious creative forces.

• Arp, Hans (Peter Wilhelm)
  • France, §III, 6(ii): Painting & graphic arts, after c 1914: Dada, Surrealism and abstraction
  • France, §IV, 6(i): Sculpture, c 1900–c 1945
  • France, §IV, 6(ii): Sculpture, after c 1945
  • Lissitzky, El, §3: Moscow, Constructivism and later work, 1921–41
  • Periodical, §II, 2(ii)(e): Cubism, Vorticism, Dada and De Stijl
  • Switzerland, §I: Introduction
  • Switzerland, §IV: Sculpture
  • Taeuber -Arp, Sophie
  • collaboration
    • Doesburg, Theo van
    • Elementarism
    • Huelsenbeck, Richard
    • Master printers, §III: Specialization and collaboration
  • collages
    • Collage
  • dealers
    • Janis, Sidney
    • Loeb, Pierre
    • René, Denise
  • frames
    • Frame, §III, 12: France: Mid-19th and 20th centuries
  • glass
    • Venice, §III, 3(iv): Centre of glass production, after 1797
  • groups and movements
    • Abstract art, §2: Pioneers, 1912–20
    • Dada, §1: Early History: Zurich, 1914–18
    • Dada, §6: Cologne Dada, 1919–22
    • Dada, §6: Final phase: Paris, 1919–24
    • Environmental art
    • Magnelli, Alberto
    • Abstraction-Création
      • Abstract art, §4: Concrete art and geometric abstraction, 1930–45
      • Abstraction-Création
    • a.r. group
      • a.r. group
    • Art Concret
      • Abstract art, §5: Abstract Expressionism and related tendencies, mid- to late 1940s and 1950s
    • Art informel
      • Art informel
    • Cabaret Voltaire (group)
      • Ball, Hugo
    • Cercle et Carré
      • Cercle et Carré
    • Concrete art
      • Abstract art, §3: European movements of the 1920s
    • Dada
      • Abstract art, §1: Origins and early experiments, to c 1913
      • Dada
      • Dada, §3: Barcelona and developments in Zurich, 1916–20
      • Dada, §4: Berlin Dada, 1917–22
      • Germany, §III, 5(i): Painting and graphic arts, c 1900–c 1939
      • Performance art, §1(iii): Origins: Dada
      • Tzara, Tristan
    • Dada Weststupidia 3
      • Baargeld, Johannes Theodor
    • Merz
      • Dada, §5: Associated developments: Merz, Constructivism and Ma, 1919–25
    • Moderner Bund
      • Gimmi, Wilhelm
    • Neue Leben
      • Eggeling, Viking
      • Neue Leben
    • Salon des Réalités Nouvelles
      • Dewasne, Jean
      • Domela, César
    • Stijl, De
      • Stijl, De
    • Surrealism
      • Surrealism
      • Surrealism, §I, 1(ii): France, 1917–30: Visual arts
    • theosophy
      • Theosophy
  • objets trouvés
    • Objet trouvé
  • patrons and collectors
    • Dotremont, Philippe
    • Gallatin, A. E.
    • Villanueva, Carlos Raúl
    • Weisman
  • pupils
    • Fruhtrunk, Günter
  • sculpture
    • Biomorphism
    • Caracas
    • Germany, §IV, 5: Sculpture, after c 1900
    • fonts (baptismal)
      • Font, §6: Modern
  • woodcuts
    • Woodcut, §II, 6(i): 20th century: Revival, pre-World War II
  • writings
    • Lyon, §2: Art life and organization
    • Mesens, E. L. T.