Sophie Taeuber-Arp

"Elementary Forms in a Vertical-Horizontal Composition / Formes élémentaires en composition verticale-horizontale"

"Composition in Dense, Polychrome, Quadrangular Spots / Composition en taches quadrangulaires, polychromes, denses"

"I very much enjoyed working on the drawing, so much so that I made a whole series of small watercolors that I can use at any time for application on embroidered purses, pillows, rugs and wall hangings."

"..the wish to produce beautiful things — when that wish is true and profound — falls together with [man's] striving for perfection."

"The intrinsic decorative urge should not be eradicated. It is one of humankind's deep-rooted, primordial urges. Primitive people decorated their implements and cult objects with a desire to beautify and enhance.. ..it is a sense emanating from the urge for perfection and creative accomplishment."

"I think I have spoken enough to you about serious things; which is why I speak [now] of something to which I attribute great value, still too little appreciated — gaiety. It is gaiety, basically, that allows us to have no fear before the problems of life and to find a natural solution to them."

"I met Sophie Taeuber in Zurich in 1915. Even then she already knew how to give direct and palpable shape to her inner reality. In those days this kind of art was called 'abstract art'. Now it is known as 'concrete art,' for nothing is more concrete than the psychic reality it expresses. Like music this art is tangible inner reality she was already dividing the surface of a watercolor into squares and rectangles which she juxtaposed horizontally and perpendicularly. She constructed her painting like a work of masonry. The colors are luminous, going from rawest yellow to deep red or.. ..blue."

"At most anytime you would find them [Sophie and Hans Arp ] busy with gluing, stitching, cutting, weaving or building marionettes, which they would let dangle from hooks in the ceiling. The mood was like the first day of Creation, Arp and Sophie re-inventing the world, together with new laws and possibilities of understanding. There was something ethereal about this couple; they resembled two winged ants or butterflies above a flowering meadow: she gracious, smiling, calm; he amused and comical, with hands that were constantly busy kneading, caressing, and assembling."