Meret (or Méret) Elisabeth Oppenheim (6 October 1913 – 15 November 1985) was a German-born Swiss Surrealist artist and photographer. Oppenheim was a member of the Surrealist movement along with André Breton, Luis Buñuel, Max Ernst, and other writers and visual artists. Besides creating art objects, Oppenheim also famously appeared as a model for photographs by Man Ray, most notably a series of nude shots of her interacting with a printing press.
Early life
Meret Oppenheim was born on October the 6th, 1913 in Berlin. Oppenheim was named after Meretlein, a wild child who lives in the woods, from the novel Green Henry by Gottfried Keller. Oppenheim had two siblings, a sister named Kristin (born 1915) and a brother named Burkhard (born 1919). Her father, a German-Jewish doctor, was conscripted into the army at the outbreak of war in 1914. Consequently, Oppenheim and her mother, who was Swiss, moved to live with Oppenheim's maternal grandparents in Delémont, Switzerland. In Switzerland, Oppenheim was exposed to a plethora of art and artists from a young age. Oppenheim was also inspired by her aunt, Ruth Wenger, especially by Wenger's devotion to art and her modern lifestyle. During the late 1920s, Oppenheim was further exposed to different artworks connected to Modernism, Expressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism.
By 1928, Oppenheim was introduced to the writings of Carl Jung through her father and was inspired to record her dreams. Oppenheim was interested in Jung's analytical approach, particularly his animus-anima theory. Throughout her life, Oppenheim carefully analyzed her own dreams and transcribed them in detail in her writings. She attempted to use them when addressing “fundamental life questions.” Likewise, Oppenheim used iconography and motifs from Jung's archetypes within her work throughout the years; typical motifs Oppenheim used include spirals and snakes. Oppenheim renounced the term “feminine art” and adopted Jung's ideal androgynous creativity in her art in which masculine and feminine aspects worked simultaneously.
The work of Paul Klee, the focus of a retrospective at the Kunsthalle Basel in 1929, provided another strong influence on Oppenheim, arousing her to the possibilities of abstraction.
In May 1932, at the age of 18, Oppenheim moved to Paris from Basel, Switzerland and sporadically attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière to study painting. Her first studio was a hotel room at Montparnasse Hotel in Paris. At this time she produced mainly paintings and drawings. In 1933, Oppenheim met Hans Arp and Alberto Giacometti. After visiting her studio and seeing her work, Arp and Giacometti invited her to participate in the Surrealist exhibition in the “Salon des Surindépendants,” held in Paris between 27 October and 26 November. Oppenheim later met André Breton and began to participate in meetings at the Café de la Place Blanche with the Surrealist circle. She impressed the surrealists with her uninhibited behavior. Shortly after she began to attend meetings regularly with Breton and other acquaintances, Oppenheim's circle was joined by other Surrealist artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, and Man Ray. The conceptual approach favored by Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, and Francis Picabia became important to her work.
After Oppenheim moved to Paris, her first contacts became Alberto Giacommetti and Hans Arp. She was then introduced to Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, and was in 1936 asked to exhibit her work in a show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Her paintings were hung alongside those in the Paris and New York art scenes, including Salvador Dali and Giacommetti. After the exhibion of Object Man Ray annointed Oppenheim as "Surrealism's 'muse.'"
Oppenheim fit in with the Surrealists because she was seeking "acceptance and approval for the way she was living her life." She was skeptical of any concrete ideology, and Surrealism allowed her to experiment within her art. This is evident in her painting Sitting Figure with Shrunken Fingers, which has been described as "sexless, featureless, placeless...a portrait of the attitude of its maker."
Oppenheim experimented with diverse styles throughout her career, including while she identified as a Surrealist. She experimented with “veristic surrealism” and had a quality of openness that allowed her work to maintain relevance. Unlike other Surrealists that viewed dreams as a way to unlock the subconscious, Oppenheim used painting and her dreams as an “analogy to its (the subconsciousness’) forms. Likewise, Oppenheim used versatile symbols, partly influenced by Carl Jung, that provided mystery and ambiguity. Similarly, unlike other Surrealists Oppenheim used symbols with a “fluid and changeable impact” and produced works that were cohesive through frequent and organized ideas rather than formal language. To direct viewers towards her meaning, she would strategically title her works.
Nonetheless, Oppenheim’s Object persists as an example of “Surrealist fetishism,” as its function follows its form; the fur on the cup renders it not functional.
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