>> Raoul Hausmann Archive
      Raoul Hausmann, Untitled, 1950
1/6     |
Raoul Hausmann was born in 1886 and is celebrated as a founder of the Berlin Dada movement. Together with others in the aftermath of World War I, he set about redefining what art should be. He was one of the first to invent the photomontage assemblage technique and also initiated the field of sound poetry. Virulently iconoclastic, Dada artists sought to demolish barriers between art and life, releasing a wave of creative potential that lasted throughout the 20th century and is still felt today. Hausmann fled the Nazi rise to power in 1933 and after a period of travelling across Europe eventually found refuge at Peyrat-le-Château not far from Vassivière in the Limousin region. After the war, he moved the few miles to Limoges where he settled definitively, working there until his death in 1971. |
The Rochechouart Archive was established in 1986 with the aim of recording Raoul Hausmann's wide-ranging production of art and documenting the underlying intellectual currents behind it. Over 700 works are currently in the collection, complemented by a vast corpus of personal documents donated by Hausmann's life-partner, Marthe Prévot. The only other such concentration of works can be found at the Berlinische Gallerie in Berlin. The Raoul Hausmann Archive in Rochechouart contains prime examples of the artist's work that range from research into synesthesia to experimental sound poetry, plus letters, theoretical texts, poems and recordings by the man who dubbed himself the "Dadasoph".
Selections of works from the collection are regularly displayed in a permanent gallery in the museum and upon request, the complete archive may be accessed for research.
Selections of works from the collection are regularly displayed in a permanent gallery in the museum and upon request, the complete archive may be accessed for research.