Meret Oppenheim (*1913 in Berlin-Charlottenburg, Germany and died 1985 in Basel, Switzerland) has found her vocation in art in her teen years. Meret Oppenheim’s work spans an incredible variety of disciplines, styles and materials. She drew, painted, wrote poetry, created objects and collages and designed furniture, clothes and jewelry. She is seen as one of the most unusual artists of the 20th century.
Traveling to Paris with a painter friend in 1933, she met Alberto Giacometti and Hans Arp. Man Ray photographed them on a printing press in the cycle of images Érotique Voilée, which earned her the reputation as the muse of the Surrealists. In 1936, she moved back to Basel. She later on designed costumes and masks for Daniel Spoerri’s production of Picasso’s play How to Pack Your Wishes on the tail. She lived and worked alternately in Paris, Bern and Carona. In 1981, Galerie Krinzinger exhibited Meret Oppenheim in the for the first time. In 1997, a retrospective was organized which was shown at the gallery in Vienna at the Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem, The Netherlands, Uppsala Konstmuseum, Sweden and the Helsinki City Art Museum, Finland. Since her passing multiple retrospectives were held including a very recent one at de MoMA, New York in 2022.
