Naggar, Carole.Dictionnaire des Photographes. Paris, 1982.
Pocock, Philip J.The Camera as Witness: International
Exhibition of Photography/Regards Sur La Terre Des
Hommes: Exposition Internationale De Photographie.
Toronto: Southam, 1967.
Schwalbert, Bob. ‘‘Inner Circuit.’’Camera Arts3, no. 3 (1983).
Smith, Gibbs M., Billy Jay, and H. Gernsheim.Photogra-
phers Photographed. 1983.JOHN HEARTFIELD
German
Helmut Herzfeld’s Anglicization of his name to John
Heartfield in the summer of 1916 was in protest to a
nationalistic slogan being repeated around Germany,
‘‘May God Punish England’’ (Gott Strafe England).
The decision to change his name as a form of protest
is an example of a life and career that was devoted to,
and motivated by, socially conscious action. Not a
photographer himself, Heartfield spent his life using
photography as a form of politically motivated art.
The early part of his career was spent with the Berlin
Dada group in which he and his close friend, the
painter George Grosz, pioneered the technique of
‘‘photomontage.’’ Strictly speaking, photomontage
is a technique that creates a new artwork by appro-
priating and combining pieces from existing photo-
graphs. However, it is not uncommon to see a
photomontage made with a combination of photo-
graphs and other materials, whether text, drawing,
or found object. Heartfield and the other members of
the Berlin Dada group used photomontage to create
disruptive, often nonsensical artworks inspired by
the brutality and senseless violence of World War I.
In fact, Heartfield and his brother, Weiland Herz-
felde (who added an ‘‘e’’ to his name, at the same
time Helmut changed his name) were both drafted
for service in the war. Heartfield served from 1914 to
1916 when he, by all accounts, staged a nervous
breakdown in order to ensure his discharge from
the military. Early photomontage was also meant
to critique the forces of business and commerce as
well as the Expressionist art movement. From Heart-
field’s Dada period onward, he diverged from his use
of photomontage in his art.
Heartfield’s work changed a great deal as he
moved away from his earliest Dada-influenced
pieces and toward photomontages more explicitly
in reaction to current events. This shift was con-
nected to his increasing involvement with the Ger-
man Communist Party. The 1924 photomontage
entitledTen Years Later: Fathers and Sons,inspired
by the ten year anniversary of the beginning of
World War I, was his first piece that made explicit
reference to contemporary events. In it, a row of
skeletons appears to be suspended above a group
of very young boys dressed as soldiers marching to
war. In the foreground looms a German general,
positioned to lead the young soldiers. Both a remem-
brance of the dead and a warning against future
wars, this piece provoked strong reactions when it
was displayed, enlarged, and surrounded by various
mementos of the war, in the front window of his and
Weiland’s bookstore and publishing house, Malik
Verlag. At one point, it attracted such a crowd that
the police had to be called in to restore the flow of
traffic outside the storefront.
Heartfield continued to use photomontage as a
means of political critique for the balance of his
career. Like many politically motivated artists, he
did not seek distribution through the traditional
channels of museums or galleries—though it did
eventually find him in some small degree—but rather
in posters, postcards, and on book and magazine
covers, mostly those published through Malik Ver-
lag. His work as a book jacket designer was also his
primary means of financial support. The majority of
Heartfield’s work appeared initially in the magazine
Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung,orA-I-Z(The Workers’
Illustrated Newspaper). The Communist-affiliated
magazine, aimed primarily at German workers, was
founded in Berlin in 1925 but, like Heartfield himself,
was forced to relocate to Prague in 1933 when Hitler
came to power.A-I-Zwas remarkable for two rea-
sons: (1) unlike other similarly-aimed periodicals of
the time, it used photography in an innovative way,
and (2) it is one of the few examples outside of the
former Soviet Union of avant-garde art that success-HARTMANN, ERICH