JOHN HEARTFIELD
Peter Pachnicke and Klaus Honnef (editors)

Peter Pachnicke and Klaus Honnef (editors): JOHN HEARTFIELD. Koln: DuMont, 1991. First edition. Text in German. A near-fine oversized softcover catalogue in stiff, printed wrappers; light wear from handling. Interior unmarked and very clean. Out-of-print. This German edition contains several essays that were omitted from the Abrams American edition.

9.75 x 12.25 softcover book with 438pages with 289 illustrations including 83 plates in full color. Includes bibliography and index. Major catalogue and critical retrospective of Helmut Herzfeld (1891-1968), known primarily as one of the inventors of photomontage, and as a member of the Berlin Dada group in 1920 ( he broke with the Dadaists, since they did not fulfill his radical conception of the artist's role in society. He had a distaste for the materialism, greed and immorality rampant in Germany in the 1920s. His aim was to mobilize social energy, to expose with his forceful political art the evils, corruption, dangers, and abuses of power in the Nazi regime).

Heartfield trained as a graphic artist in Munich and collaborated extensively with George Grosz, Raoul Hausmann and Hanna Höch and played a key role in founding the Berlin wing of Dada. Heartfield and Grosz began experimenting with photomontage in 1915-16, later to develop photomontage into a powerful satirical tool. His best known images were published between 1930 and 1938 in the magazine Arbetier-Illustrierte Zeitung, renamed Volks Illustrierte.

Extraordinarily Comprehensive study of the artist's work. Heartfield's Dada pieces, virulent photomontages, posters, theatre sets, and book designs show his technique of combining ironic political slogans with stirring imagery. Very strong stuff, much more acerbic than similar work produced by El Lissitzky, Rodchenko,Klutsis or Moholy-Nagy.

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