Paperback

This book on the celebrated Dada artist Hannah Höch explores her use of collage as the artistic medium of choice for both satire and poetic beauty.

World-renowned for her work during the Weimar period, Hannah Höch was a pioneer in many aspects, both artistic and cultural. She was the crucial female artist of the Berlin Dada movement – the riotous movement that deconstructed sound, language, and images to re-assemble them into new objects, texts and meanings. Höch was a pivotal force in the development of collage, paving the way for today’s ubiquitous image editing techniques.

A determined believer in artistic freedom, Höch questioned conventional concepts of partnership, beauty and the making of art, her work presenting acute critiques of racial and social stereotypes, particularly that of her native Germany. Focusing on Höch’s collages, this book examines the artist’s career from the 1910s to the 1970s, charting her oeuvre from early works influenced by fashion and mass media, through to her later compositions of lyrical abstraction. It reveals her rapid development of a personal style, which was both humorous and often moving, but also offered critical commentary on society at a time of tremendous social change.