"Hans, or Jean, Arp (1886-1966) is internationally renowned as one of the foremost sculptors and visual artists of the twentieth century. This book treats his poetry, painting and sculpting as interrelated facets of a single aesthetic strategy. His practice of moving freely between his different expressive forms and his two languages (French and German) throughout his career, and his tendency to alter his earlier works, both complicate the bibliographer's task and stimulate the interest of the reader and spectator. In its eclecticism, its playful refusal of fixity, its preoccupation with notions of framing and its disregard for the aura traditionally associated with the original, Arp's creative oeuvre challenges and often transcends traditional categories of description." "Examining major works in the light of recent critical and theoretical perspectives, this book also considers the extent to which Arp's resistance to single, reductive interpretations may be linked to his bilingual, bicultural upbringing in Alsace and his experience of two world wars."--Jacket.