6.10.1913 born in Berlin, †15.11.1985 in Basle.
Since 1948 she lived in Switzerland. Surrealistic painter und object-artist. Her early paintings belong to the »Magic Realism». The cup with fur at the Museum of Modern Art in New York surely is her best known work of art. The fountain at the »Giardino«has been made by using a model that was found among Meret Oppenheim´s personal effects.
Hermes Fountain
1966/1999
Height: 250 cm, Ø:190 cm
bronze, basalt tiles, gravel
In 1966 Meret Oppenheim completed a magnificent plaster model (Ø: 180 cm) for a fountain. Daniel Spoerri talked to his heirs, who ultimately agreed to have this model carried out properly. The central element of form in the fountain is the figure of Mercury with his reconciliatory caduceus. Two snakes twine around it, symbols of femininity, but also of creativity. The water merely drips gently from above. Indeed, it thus resembles a string of pearls, with which Meret Oppenheim, when working with the model – as a photograph shows -, tried to simulate the path of the water.
Hermes Fountain
1966/1999
Height: 250 cm, Ø:190 cm
bronze, basalt tiles, gravel
