I wanted to find another order, another value for man in nature. He was no longer to be the measure of all things, no longer to reduce everything to his own measure, but on the contrary, all things and man were to be like nature, without measure. I wanted to create new appearances, extract new forms from man. — Jean Arp
Born in Strasbourg in 1886, then part of the German Empire, Arp grew up between French and German cultures, a dual identity that remained central to both his literary and artistic practice. Following his studies at the Kunstschule in Strasbourg, he continued his education at the Kunstschule in Weimar before settling periodically in Paris, where encounters with Cubism, Post-Impressionism and the European avant- garde broadened his understanding of form. Nature quickly replaced academic convention as his principal point of reference. Seeds, leaves, stones, shells and cellular structures became enduring sources of observation, inspiring an approach in which forms appear to evolve according to their own internal logic.