Editing Kurt Schwitters (section)

===London===
After obtaining his freedom Schwitters moved to London, hoping to make good on the contacts that he had built up over his period of internment. He first moved to an attic flat at 3 St Stephen's Crescent, [[Paddington]]. It was here that he met his future companion, Edith Thomas:

<blockquote>“He knocked on her door to ask how the boiler worked, and that was that. [...] She was 27 – half his age. He called her Wantee, because she was always offering tea." Gretel Hinrichsen quoted in ''The Telegraph''<ref>[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-features/9810512/Kurt-Schwitters-inspiration-of-Pop-Art.html ''Kurt Schwitters, inspiration of pop art''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171205042153/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-features/9810512/Kurt-Schwitters-inspiration-of-Pop-Art.html |date=5 December 2017 }} by Mark Hudson in [[The Daily Telegraph]], 27 January 2013</ref></blockquote>

In London he made contact with and mixed with a range of artists, including [[Naum Gabo]], [[László Moholy-Nagy]] and [[Ben Nicholson]]. He exhibited in a number of galleries in the city but with little success; at his first solo exhibition at The Modern Art Gallery in December 1944, forty works were displayed, priced between 15 and 40 [[Guinea (British coin)|guineas]], but only one was bought.<ref>[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/artsales/9816335/Art-sales-Kurt-Schwitters-material-world.html ''Art Sales: Kurt Schwitters' Material World''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171205194544/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/artsales/9816335/Art-sales-Kurt-Schwitters-material-world.html |date=5 December 2017 }} by Colin Gleadell, in ''The Telegraph'', 22 January 2013</ref>

During his years in London, the shift in Schwitters's work continued towards an organic element that augmented the mass-produced ephemera of previous years with natural forms and muted colours. Pictures such as ''Small Merzpicture With Many Parts'' 1945–6,<ref>In The Beginning Was Merz, Meyer-Buser, Orchard, Hatje Kantz, p. 163</ref> for example, used objects found on a beach, including pebbles and smooth shards of porcelain.

In August 1942 he moved with his son to 39 Westmoreland Road, [[Barnes, London|Barnes]], London. In October 1943 he learnt that his Merzbau in Hanover had been destroyed in [[Allies of World War II|Allied]] bombing. In April 1944 he suffered his first stroke, at the age of 56, which left him temporarily [[paralysis|paralyzed]] on one side of his body. His wife Helma died of cancer on 29 October 1944, although Schwitters only heard of her death in December.