Birthday happy

1886 Hugo Ball (pictured; d. September 14, 1927), Dada poet and author, born at Pirmasens, Germany. A staunch pacifist, he left Germany during World War I for neutral Switzerland in 1916.

Way ahead of his time, in Zurich on February 5, 1916 he founded Cabaret Voltaire, frequented by such luminaries as Tristan Tzara, Hans Arp, Guillaume Apollinaire, Vassily Kandinsky, Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Max Oppenheimer, Jules LaForgue, Vladimir Lenin and Arthur Rimbaud.

His intentions with regard to Cabaret Voltaire (the club) he defined as follows: "It is necessary to clarify the intentions of this cabaret. It is its aim to remind the world that there are people of independent minds -- beyond war and nationalism -- who live for different ideals."

Tagged: dada, art