Hannah Höch

Hannah Höch was a famous German DADA artist and is highly recognised as being one of the originators of photomontage during the Weimar period (1918-1933 where Jews, liberals, socialists and others were blamed for undermining war efforts).

She combined text and images from modern media to criticise social constructs for women, popular culture and the failings of the Weimar republic.

Photo analysis:

The collage is built using a photograph from the newspaper of the German president at the time, Friedrich Ebert (pictured on the left) and his Minister of Defense, Gustav Noske (pictured on the right). The two men are wearing their bathing suits in the images and are placed out of context to depict them as foolish.

She placed these figures on top of an embroidery-style background with images of a woman surrounded by flowers and butterflies. She demeans these high-authority figures by placing them on this background, depicting them foolishly. The message sent through this montage is powerful; Höch is criticising the government. In her montage, there’s a lack of colour, Höch puts the figures in a surrealist environment as a way of ridiculing them for avoiding political and financial issues facing the German population at the time.