Regarded as one of the most prolific and inventive creators of the late 20th century, the French-born American artist Arman’s vast artistic output ranges from drawings and prints to monumental public sculpture to his famous “accumulations” of found objects. His work—strongly influenced by Dada, and in turn a strong influence on Pop Art—is in the collections of such institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Inspired by the Dadaist collages of Kurt Schwitters, Arman’s first solo show, in Paris in 1954, exhibited his “Cachets,” assemblages and accumulations of stamps and fabric that were to prove an important step in the development of his artistic vision. More consequential yet was his signing, in 1960, of the manifesto of the “Nouveau Réalisme” (New Realism) movement, with fellow artists Klein, Martial Raysse and Jean Tinguely, among others. “New Realism equals new, sensitive, perceptive approaches to the real,” asserted the document, and Arman set out on a new course, in which he would re-examine the artistic possibilities of everyday objects, elevating the banal to the aesthetic, and refuse into art.

Enamored with the scene in New York, Arman took up residency in the city, just after his first exhibition at the Cordier Ekstrom. In 1973 he would become an American citizen. In New York, first at the Chelsea Hotel, and later at his more official studios, Arman began work on ever increasingly ambitious projects. There were varied expansions of the Accumulations, their content included tools, watches, clocks, furniture, automobile parts, jewelry, and, of course, music instruments in various stages of dismemberment. Musical instruments, specifically the strings and the brass, would come to form a major constituent of Arman’s oeuvre.