During his period of internment, Kurt Schwitters created 200 to 250 works. He drew and painted his surroundings using the few materials available to him and his interred artist colleagues. When paint, paper or both were scarce, Schwitters changed to other materials: He dismantled tea chests and used them in assemblages, tore linoleum tiles from the floor and used them as a foundation for painting on, collected sweet wrappers, and like in earlier phases he cut up newspaper headlines and combined them to create new meanings – after all, he initiated the “Merz” art movement from the chopped up work “Commerzbank”.

Schwitters’ last holding place was Hutchinson Camp, Isle of Man, in which many artists, writers and intellectuals were interred. They organised recitation and lecture evenings, as well as art exhibitions, in which Schwitters also took part. In the 2nd Art Exhibition, Schwitters exhibited his portrait of the journalist and lawyer Rudolf Olden. From 1934 on, Olden was secretary of the German Exile PEN Club and organised visas and material support for writers in danger. When Great Britain entered the war, Olden was interred. The painting of him that Schwitters produced in oil on plywood is from this period.

When the 2nd Art Exhibition was staged in November 1940 in Hutchinson Camp, Olden was no longer alive. Released from internment, he was on his way to Canada together with his wife. The British passenger ship City of Benares, on which the couple were sailing, was torpedoed on 17 September 1940 by German U-boat U 48 and sank – Olden and his wife were among the 253 dead.