Photomontage was first established in 1915 by the Dadaists as propaganda against the first world war. Dada was an art movement in WWI based in Switzerland and their artwork was usually satirical and ridiculous in its nature, in order to demean the associates of war. Surrealists later embraced the idea of photomontage and used it to bring together different images and text in order to convey their message more efficiently to the viewer. Many artists used it to create a sense of distorted reality as a way of exploring the unconscious mind. 

Photomontage is the process of result of cutting, gluing, layering and rearranging 2 or more photographs to make a complex image. Sometimes, the final result is then photographed so as to make the final print ‘seamless’. 

John Heartfield

Was a well-known, early 20th century photographer who used photomontage and art as a ‘political weapon’. When the war in 1924 broke out, he managed to avoid active service by faking mental illness. He’d destroyed all his artwork from before the war and joined the Berlin Dada club in 1918, which included artists such as Hannah Hoch and Raoul Hausmann. Dada allowed Heartfield to experiment with different materials and ways of expressing his work.

His most famous work was mainly anti-Nazi and anti-fascist . He voiced his political and social views through his photomontages