ments of photographs published in magazines and
newspapers, artists such as Hannah Ho ̈ch, Raoul
Hausmann, John Heartfield, and George Grosz
illustrated the pace of the machine age and the
uncertainties of modernity. Using mass-produced
images in a technique borrowed from folk tradi-
tions—recombinations of photo fragments in
family albums is a custom that began in the 19th
century—the Berlin Dadaists undermined the aura
of aesthetic elitism. These artists hoped that their
startling compositions of fragments of reality would
provoke responses from spectators inured by mass
media’s propagandistic use of photographs.
Claims for the origins of this art form were hotly
debated: Hausmann and Ho ̈ch claimed to have
been inspired by a composite image of the Kaiser
and his ancestors they saw in 1918; Heartfield and
Grosz asserted they began making photomontages
on postcards they sent from the warfront in 1915
and 1916; the Russian constructivist George Klutsis
also claimed to invent the form. Regardless of who
first used cut photographs in their art, the technique
clearly resonated with numerous artists seeking
ways to effectively critique social institutions. By
bringing together disparate photographic shards,
the Berlin Dada Group conveyed distortions in
time and space that defined the modern city.
Given that photographs expose the immediate and
fragmentary nature of urban life, photomontages
enabled practitioners to produce satirical social
commentaries rich with sardonic irony. Although
Hausmann and Grosz both produced compelling
photomontages, the works of Heartfield and Ho ̈ch
have received the greatest scholarly attention.
John Heartfield created photomontages to
counter the veil of veracity ascribed to photo-
graphs: ‘‘I found out how you can fool people
with photos’’ (Pachnicke, 14). Heartfield’s photo-
montages were used by the Malik Verlag, his
brother Wieland Hertzfeld’s publishing house.
The earliest of these was ‘‘Everyone his own Foot-
ball,’’ the cover image for the first issue ofIllu-
strierte Halbmonatsschrift.Publishedin1919,the
cover included images of German political figures
arranged on a paper fan below the caption ‘‘Who’s
the Prettiest of them All?’’ Heartfield quickly dis-
pensed with this straightfoward approach and
adopted a more sophisticated technique during
the 1920s and 1930s. From 1929–1939, Heartfield
contributed 237 full-page photomontages toWor-
kers’ Illustrated Newspaper, a Communist publica-
tion. These images were sharply critical of Hitler
and the National Socialist party as typified by
works such as Adolf, the Superman: Swallows
Gold and Spouts Junk(1932), which uses a photo
of Hitler speaking at a political rally with an image
of gold coins delineating his esophagus and sto-
mach; inHurray, the Butter is All Gone!(1935)
Heartfield depicts a German family eating a
bicycle in a dining room wallpapered with the
swastika emblem and a portrait of Hitler looming
in the corner. Heartfield did not take photographs
himself, but used images from newspapers, maga-
zines, books, and photograph archives and occa-
sionally had photographs taken when he could not
find an image that met specific needs.
Hannah Ho ̈ch’s photomontages were more intui-
tive and startling in their random shifts in scale and
eclectic assortment of source material. She sought to
reveal the superficiality of the images she used by
suggesting possible alternative realities. Ho ̈ch’s
photomontages challenged the seductive surface of
photographic reality and thereby the status quo of
the bourgeoisie. HerCut with the Kitchen Knife Dada
through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch
of Germany(1919–1920) typifies this effort. The
image, far larger than most photomontages, is den-
sely packed with images of political leaders, athletes,
Dada artists, and leading cultural figures, including
Albert Einstein. Consistent with Ho ̈ch’s concerns
regarding women’s rights, females are granted pro-
minent roles. For instance, an exotic dancer tickles
Wilhelm II under the chin, and the central figure
around which the composition oscillates is an amal-
gamation of a dancer’s body and Ka ̈the Kollwitz’s
face, which has been pierced by a spear. The playful-
ness of the dancing body adjacent to the pain implied
by the penetrating spear exemplifies a dialectic
between hostility and joy that resonates throughout
Ho ̈ch’s work. In an effort to liberate women from
their limited societal roles, Ho ̈ch’s work often juxta-
poses fashionably dressed females with machinery to
achieve a metonymic effect, whereby women are
presented as something other than a sexual object,
mother, or wife (Lavin 19–22). From 1924 to 1934,
Ho ̈ch worked onFrom an Ethnographic Museum,
which combined images from German ethnographic
collections with contemporary women. Although
Ho ̈ch was not critical of contemporary ethnographic
attitudes, she used these images to continue her cri-
tique of European gender definitions.
The New York and Parisian Dada groups also
used photography, if not photomontage, specifically.
Notable among these artists were Man Ray and
Marcel Duchamp. In 1921, these two figures met in
New York and collaborated on the only issue ofNew
York Dada. The cover depicted a perfume bottle to
which a photograph by Man Ray of Duchamp
dressed as his female altar ego Rose Se ́lavy had
been affixed. The magazine was a commercial failureDADA