Artist 7: the politically charged photo-collages of John Heartfield (Helmut Herzfeld)

the politically charged photo-collages of John Heartfield (Helmut Herzfeld)

       One of the first to use photocollage/photomontage techniques to create works that served as political weapons, Artist John Heartfield (Helmut Herzfeld) created anto-nazi and anti-fascist works that were profoundly powerful, yet oftentimes extremely simple, political statements.

       During the first world war, Heartfield changed his name from the germanic Helmut Herzfeld to the Anglicized John Heartfield as a means of protesting the Anti-British sentiment growing in Germany. in the early 1920s, Heartfield collaborated with George Grosz in experiments in the art of cutting and pasting photographic images together, later to be termed "Photomontage".

       Heartfield was an active communist and pivotal member in the Dada movement in the early 20th century, working with such notables as Hannah Hoch, George Grosz, Marcel Duchamp, and Bertolt Brecht, and helped to organize major events such as the First International Dada fair in Berlin in 1920

       Although he was well known for his stage-craft abilities, building numerous stark and somewhat minimal sets for fello Dadaists Erwin Piscator and Bertolt Brecht, it was through his work in Photomontage -his main mode of visual expression- that Heartfield established himself as one of the great artists of the 20th century. Best known amongst his work are the images that expose and criticize the hypocrisy and brutality associated with German Nazism. The montages he produced during the 1930s and 40s stand as some of his best known and highly celebrated work. A prolific producer, Heartfield's work appeared on the covers for Arbeiter Illustrierte Zeitung (AIZ, Workers' Illustrated Newspaper) from 1929 to 1933, a communist publication readily available on street-corner newsstands  one whose circulation rivaled that of any other contemporaneous magazine/publication in Germany.

       While he utilized rather simple techniques to create his montages, the reproduction for mass circulation of his images required the use of a technique called rotogravure, an engraving process where words, designs, and images are engraved onto a printing plate (or cylinder), lending his widely circulated images a unique aesthetic, unique unto itself, that was distinctly different from the original works the Artist produced. while the original images exist in extremely rare numbers, many of these reproductions, having been printed off in the millions, have managed to survive and are as highly sought after by collectors as the original montages themselves.

       What I find most compelling about these photomontages is their simplicity; they aren't cluttered with imagery, many of them constructed from only two separate elements. The economic and minimal use of material, often sourced directly from state-run German publications, allows for images that are easy to read without the need for subtext. Often whimsical and amusing, Heartfield's profound and venomously critical work was an innovative use of materials and process that allowed the artist to quickly communicate complicated abstract concepts to a large audience of illiterate workers disenfranchised by the oppressive nazi regime.