ABSTRACT
Sophie Taeuber was one of the leading figures of the Zurich Dada art movement as a dancer and as an artist, and one of their only Swiss-born members. Sophie performed at the celebration of the opening of the Gallery Dada on March 27, 1917, where, as Dada artist Hugo Ball later noted, several members of the Psychological Club were in attendance. Sophie received the commission to design and make the puppets and stage sets for a production of the play King Stag, by Carlo Gozzi. It was a combination of Dada and psychoanalysis and concerned the battle between S. Freud and C. G. Jung over the nature of the libido. Sophie’s world fame came late. In the last twenty years art critics and feminist writers have finally seen her as a distinct artist and important member of the Dada movement in her own right, quite apart from her husband Jean Arp, though he promoted her constantly throughout their life together.
