The artist's most famous work Meret Oppenheim it is without a doubt, Object (1936), a witty and surprising piece in which the juxtapositions surprise, but she is definitely much more than said piece.
Oppenheim was born in Berlin in 1913 and grew up in a family of psychoanalysts in southern Germany and later Switzerland.
Although her nuclear family was thoroughly scientifically trained, it is clear that Méret Oppenheim was inspired by her grandmother, Lisa Wenger-Ruutz, a well-known children's illustrator whose work featured smiling trees and fruit, to find her way in the world. Of art.
In 1932, at the age of 18, Oppenheim decided to move to Paris and begin taking art classes at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière.
Days Paar, 1956. Meret Oppenheim. Source: AnOther Magazine
Years later, in some interviews he gave to various media, This artist said that she was not the one who looked for the surreal, but they were the ones who found it.
Thanks to this, Méret quickly, almost effortlessly, became friends with many older and much more established artists, including Picasso and Giacometti.
The following year she exhibited with both of them at the Salon des Surindépendants and Man Ray asked her to model for a series of nude photographs. From that moment on, Méret Oppenheim became a central figure in the art scene at that time.
They say that one day the idea of what is perhaps his best-known work (Object, 1936) it occurred to him in a conversation he had with Pablo Picasso and the photographer Dora Maar in a Paris café, at the age of 23.
With this piece, she not only brought her work to the spotlight, but also gained access to the exclusive surrealist club, where she became the first woman allowed to participate as an artist.
Handschuhe (Paar) (Guanti - paio), 1985. Meret Oppenheim. Source: AnOther Magazine
Distorting everyday objects became his signature. A great example of this is Das Paar (The Couple) from 1956, a pair of brown boots joined at the toe or T42, from 1999, which represents a pair of glasses kissing passionately.
Throughout his career, Oppenheim immensely enjoyed playing with convention and was not afraid to explore and subvert established ideas.
It should be noted that he played, as it occurred to him, with his hands and gloves, key motifs for the surrealist movement.
In the late 1930s he even collaborated with Elsa Schiaparelli on a line of surreal gloves, each pair heralding a totally different element, from painted fingernails and bones to golden claws.
Using gray goatskin suede, Oppenheim even screen-printed fine red veins on the gloves, going around the body and thus defying the very nature of a glove's purpose to cover and protect.
The impact of Méret Oppenheim's works and designs continues to this day in various fields, but mainly in the world of fashion, as we can find references to her work in fascinating collections.
