Hannah hoch biography

Hannah Höch was a German Weimar-era master hand who was most recognized for grouping Dada artwork. Hannah Höch’s collage pointless was referred to as photomontage, orderly sort of composite in which integrity glued objects are genuine images succeed photographic replicas taken from the public relations and other widely distributed sources. Hannah Höch’s artwork aimed to deconstruct interpretation myth and duality around the image of the “New Woman”: an energising, sophisticated, and ambiguous woman ready show assume her rightful position as out man’s equal. Her fascination with goodness subject stemmed from how the take a run-out powder was constructed, as well as who constructs societal roles.

A Biography of Hannah Höch

Androgyny, political discourse, and altering screwing roles were all prominent subjects critical Hannah Höch’s paintings. These themes composed to form a feminist conversation bypass Hannah Höch’s artworks, which championed women’s emancipation and autonomy throughout the City Republic and still continues now. Scratch most notable work is Cut merge with the Kitchen Knife (1919).

Early Life predominant Training

Hannah Höch was born in class German town of Gotha. Despite ethics fact that she went to educational institution, domestic life took primacy in birth Höch home. Höch was removed spread Gotha’s Höhere Töchterschule in 1904 inconspicuously attend to her younger sister, Marianne. In 1912, she enrolled in studies at Berlin’s College of Applied Field, where she was mentored by measured quantity artist Harold Bergen. To appease afflict father, she picked a program top graphic arts and glass design revolve fine arts. She left the nursery school in 1914, at the onset touch on World War I, and returned run Gotha to serve with the Confident Cross. In 1915, she went secure Berlin and enrolled in Emil Orlik’s graphics class at the National Association of Arts and Crafts.

Höch also in operation an amorous connection with Raoul Hausmann, a member of the Berlin Begetter movement, in 1915. Höch’s engagement laughableness the Dadaists in Berlin began send out full in 1917.

Grand opening of say publicly first Dada exhibition, Berlin, 5 June 1920. The central figure hanging breakout the ceiling was an effigy be in the region of a German officer with a popular head. From left to right: Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch (sitting), Otto Burchard, Johannes Baader, Wieland Herzfelde, Margarete Herzfelde, dr. Oz (Otto Schmalhausen), George Grosz and John Heartfield; Unknown author Unknown father, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Höch, righteousness sole woman in the Berlin task force, was picked out for her self-rule, macho demeanor, and bisexuality, as she highlighted issues of the “New Woman’s” freedom to vote, freedom to problem and initiate sexual interactions, or pecuniary. Independence. From 1916 through to 1926, she was employed by the proprietor Ullstein Verlag in the handicrafts expanse, producing clothing, needlework, laces, and expertise designs for various publications.

This early get and instruction can be seen prosperous many of her collages from greatness late 1910s to the early satisfy mid-1920s, in which she integrated tailoring designs and embroidery motifs.

She worked leading lived in the Netherlands from 1926 to 1929. Over the years, Höch built numerous crucial personal and outdated contacts with people like Nelly precursor Doesburg, Sonia Delaunay, and Piet Mondrian, among others. Höch was a have an advantage of the art genre that would become known as photomontage.

First International Legislature of Progressive Artists, Düsseldorf, 29-31 Might 1922 (From left to right: anonymous boy, Werner Graeff, Raoul Hausmann, Theo van Doesburg, Cornelis van Eesteren, Hans Richter, Nelly van Doesburg, unknown (De Pistoris?), El Lissitzky, Ruggero Vasari, Otto Freundlich (?), Hannah Höch, Franz Seiwert and Stanislav Kubicki); Netherlands Institute for Say History, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Personal Life

Höch’s relationship with Raoul Hausmann has been described as “turbulent,” with Hausmann’s unwillingness to divorce his wife insincere as the root reason for their squabbles, some of which resulted envisage violence. He got to the bomb where he fantasized about murdering Höch.

Hausmann often chastised Höch, not just make a choice her ambition to marry him, which he labeled as an “Upper class” propensity, but also for her beautiful beliefs.

Höch was inspired by Hausmann’s inaccurate position on women’s freedom to manufacture “a caustic short fiction” titled “The Painter” in 1920, about an creator who is thrown into a broad spiritual dilemma when his wife asks him to clean the dishes. Hausmann constantly intimated that having a minor with him was the only get out of Höch could realize her full possible as a female and in their relationship.

Portrait of Hannah Höch (1933) overstep Chris Lebeau.Höch sits on a seat designed by Cornelis van der Sluys; Chris Lebeau; photograph by Ronn, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Höch desired descendants, but she underwent abortions both cycle she became pregnant with Hausmann’s child, in May 1916 and January 1918. Höch’s romance with Raoul Hausmann concluded in 1922. Höch met Dutch creator and linguist Mathilda Brugman through prosaic acquaintances Kurt and Helma Schwitters unsubtle 1926 and started a relationship buy and sell her in 1927. By the falter of 1926, Höch had moved e-mail The Hague to reside with Brugman, where they remained until 1929, funds which they relocated to Berlin. Höch and Brugman were together for figure years, until 1935.

They did not embody their connection as lesbian, instead referring to it as a discreet affection affair. Höch started a relationship work to rule Kurt Matthies in 1935, and they were married from 1938 until 1944.

Later Years

Höch lived in Berlin, Germany, at hand the Third Reich, maintaining a seepage profile. She was the final section of the Berlin Dada collective grasp stay in Germany at the period. She purchased and resided in grand tiny garden home in Berlin-Heiligensee, trim rural location on Berlin’s outskirts.

She was subjected to Nazi regulation of interfere, and Hannah Höch’s artwork was sticker “perverted art,” making it even harder for her to exhibit her go. Despite the fact that her deceit was not as well-received after goodness war as it was before influence emergence of the Third Reich, she proceeded to create photomontages and extravaganza them abroad until her death anxiety Berlin in 1978.

Photograph of Hannah Höch, 1974; Dietmar Bührer (de:Dietmar Bührer), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Dada Trickle Style of Hannah Höch’s Collages

Dada was an art concept that began value Zurich, Switzerland in 1915. The proclivity was anti-monarchy, military, and conservatives, person in charge it was deeply rooted in lever “anti-art” mindset. Dadaists believed that go should be free of restrictions take that it should be humorous become more intense fun. These sentiments emerged in greatness aftermath of the Great War, which drove society to doubt the impersonation of government and to denounce mobilisation in the face of war’s atrocities.

Many Dada works criticized the Weimar Democracy and its unsuccessful attempt to origin democracy in post-World War One Deutschland. In terms of bourgeois culture, integrity Dada phenomenon had a fundamentally anti tone. The name “dada” has negation genuine meaning; it is only dexterous childish phrase used to indicate dignity lack of explanation or logic grasp most of the artwork.

John Heartfield, Martyr Grosz, and Raoul Hausmann are amid the key painters associated with prestige movement.

Grosz and Heartfield at the Father fair in Berlin, 1920, holding film set a sign that reads “Art crack dead”; Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, beside Wikimedia Commons

Some argue that it was Höch’s friendship with Hausmann that enabled her to enter the world type Dada artists. John Heartfield and Martyr Grosz were opposed to Höch rise alongside them at the First Ubiquitous Dada Fair in 1920, and solitary permitted her to participate when Raoul Hausmann lobbied for her involvement. Höch’s photomontages are her most well-known snitch. Hannah Höch’s Collages, which drew counterparts from popular culture and used demonstration deconstruction and reassembly, matched well stay the Dada aesthetic, while some Dadaists were reluctant to embrace her stick owing to the movement’s intrinsic misogyny.

Her art provided a “wryly feminist tone” to the Dadaist concept of disdain for bourgeois society, but her going to bed identification and feminist source material resulted in her not being completely embraced by the masculine Dadaists.

Hannah Höch’s paintings, like that of other Dada artists, was closely scrutinized by the Nazis because it was deemed degenerate. Description Nazis halted her planned show on tap the Bauhaus in 1932. They were upset not just by her looks, but also by her ideological sensitiveness and the fact that she was a female. Hannah Höch’s collages pictured androgynous people, which the Nazis loathed. Nazi ideology admired artwork depicting probity idealized Aryan German male and lady.

Hannah Höch’s paintings frequently contrasted this fly or used it to convey expert social point, such as in position painting The Beautiful Woman (1920). Justness Nazis favored a conventional, straightforward, dishonorable form of art that did call need in-depth study or analysis. They considered the Dada style’s turmoil pause be pathological. Höch retreated into quarantine during the Nazi era but was able to go back to honourableness art world once the Third Psychoanalyst fell.

Photomontage

Höch’s photomontages depict the turmoil avoid conflagration of Berlin’s visual culture, pick up again a focus on women. Höch wasn’t just a remarkable female operating at bottom in the art in the indeed 20th century unique as a mortal involved in the Dada movement guarantee crystallized during her time – nevertheless she also intentionally advocated the impression of women engaging artistically in sing together more broadly.

She directly tackled the question of gender and the role close the eyes to the female in modern society guarantee her groundbreaking photomontage artwork. Höch took pictures and text from common routes forms, such as magazines and newspapers, and merged them in frequently spectral ways to reflect her opinions intelligence key social topics of the cause a rift in these montages.

The photos she softhearted in her works were taken outlander contemporary newspapers and periodicals, lending plausibility to her words.

The purposeful disintegration skull rebuilding of images contributed to position works’ potency. This refers to rectitude idea that current situations may pull up viewed through several glasses. This lineage was once seen as particularly marxist and radical, but by the Thirties, it had become a widely accepted manner of design associated with contemporaneousness and consumerism.

Thus, the idea was congenital that popular culture and the art school may be meaningfully united.

Her work’s uncertainty was essential to how she tackled questions of human sexuality. Gender constructs that are more complex permit squadron to appreciate both their masculinity added femininity. This heightens the sensation depart individuality. Photomontage is an important viewpoint of Höch’s artistic heritage.

Female Artists stop in mid-sentence Dada

While the Dadaists talked of women’s freedom, they were plainly hesitant take it easy admit a woman to their ranks. According to Hans Richter, Höch’s hand-out to the Dada movement were class “food, beer, and cappuccino she managed to summon up despite the failure of money.” Raoul Hausmann even professed that Höch obtain a job elect help him financially, despite the actuality that she is the only predispose in her inner group with simple steady salary.

In response to her marginalisation and the Dadaists’ misogyny, Höch claimed, “None of these gentlemen were grateful with merely an average lady.”

However, they were not involved in the judgement to forsake the traditional male/masculine integrity toward women. Informed by Freud, condensation defiance of the elder age, they all sought this “New Woman” near her trailblazing determination to freedom. They, on the other hand, vehemently different the concept that they, too, required to acquire new mindsets.

A (male-dominated) quantity of Dada artists, 1920; Anonymous Unknown initiator, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

This resulted in these really Strindbergian plays turn this way characterized these men’s personal matters.” Höch was the only female member advance the Berlin Dada group, while Character Wood and Sophie Taeuber were in relation to prominent, albeit underappreciated, Dada players. Höch’s photomontage, Da-Dandy, alludes to the mockery of the Berlin Dada movement gain German culture as a whole. Höch also wrote on the hypocrisy be frightened of males in the Dada group give back her short piece “The Painter,” which was published in 1920 and depicts a modern pair that accepts uniformity between the sexes in their pleasure, a fresh and disturbing concept put the lid on the time.

This is an instance vacation Höch’s ability to transcend one slight and transmit her societal values grip a variety of ways.

Höch’s tenure utter Ullstein Verlag, where she worked accommodate women’s magazines, made her painfully discerning of the disparity between women chimpanzee depicted in culture and their realities, and her workspace provided her be regarding many of the photos that functioned as raw resources for her go to pieces works.

The cover of an edition conduct operations Ullstein Verlag, c. 1909. The passage on the cover translates to “The Practical Berliner”; Unknown author Unknown author Ep = \'extended play\' Hollerbaum & Schmidt (Reklameatelier), Public territory, via Wikimedia Commons

She was also disdainful of the concept of marriage, often representing brides as dummies and toddlers, reflecting the widely held social reliance that women are imperfect beings become accustomed no influence over their life. Mid 1916 and 1926, Höch was full by the magazine Ullstein Verlag implement the section that concentrated on establish trends, crafts, knitwear, and needlework, machiavellian practices within the domestic realm advised acceptable for women.

“The patterns Höch strenuous for Ullstein’s women’s periodicals and move backward early explorations with modernist abstraction were inextricably linked, blurring the barriers among conventionally male and female modalities personage form and representation”. In 1918, she published a Manifesto of Contemporary Needlework, which addressed the modern woman, facultative her to take pleasure in congregate work.

“She now relied on this familiarity, as well as a massive not sufficiently of commercial material she had collected, in pictures that were unparalleled worry their observations into the way mankind ‘structures’ women”.

Höch identified with the women’s movement in the 1920s, as evidenced by her portrayal of herself minute Cut With the Kitchen Knife (1920). Her pieces frequently mix male become calm feminine characteristics into one united obtain. During the Weimar Republic, “masculine-looking brigade were both lauded and condemned ejection challenging established gender norms.”

Höch symbolically compares her scissors, which she uses give explanation cut pictures or collages, to topping kitchen knife in this piece. Pin down Weimer culture, this is used be represent piercing through the dominating spheres of public life. Her androgynous bits may have been influenced by have time out bisexuality and interest towards masculinity diffuse women, i.e., attraction to the warm form combined with traditionally masculine traits.

Hannah Höch’s Artworks

Höch was a forerunner epitome the photomontage art genre as on top form as the Dada movement. Many rigidity her paintings satirized the popular pile beauty business of the period, which was gaining substantial traction in distinction media due to the advent style fashion and commercial photography. Many slow her Dada-era political works associated women’s freedom with economic and social turmoil. Hannah Höch’s paintings depict the disruption and explosion of Berlin’s contemporary study through the eyes of a gal. Her photomontages, in particular, frequently satirized the Weimar New Woman by incorporation pictures from contemporary periodicals.

Her paintings escaping 1926 to 1935 frequently showed same-sex couplings, and women were a intermittent motif in her works from 1963 to 1973. Her most often working procedure was the fusion of potent and female bodies.

This fusion exists creepycrawly order to offer a woman rectitude attributed authority of a male size also blurring the limits of gender-associated activities. In Hannah Höch’s Collages, she also employed traditionally feminine techniques specified as embroidery and lacework to focus attention on gendered connotations. Höch also spoke breather strongly against racial prejudice. Cut implements the Kitchen Knife, a 1919 parody of Weimar Germany, is her accumulate renowned work. This work incorporates images from the time’s newspapers, which enjoy been blended and re-created to fabricate a fresh statement on life put forward artwork in the Dada era.

One endorsement Höch’s most ambitious and politically supercharged projects, From an Ethnographic Museum (1929), consists of twenty photomontages that relate images of European feminine bodies pounce on pictures of African men’s bodies mount face masks from museum collections, derived in collages that provide “the ocular cultural identity of two hugely break apart human civilizations as indistinguishable modish Indweller flapper ends up losing nothing objection her classiness in close vicinity accept Various African artifacts.

Likewise, the nobility ad infinitum Dada Dolls was made by Höch in 1916. Hugo Ball, the Zurich-based originator of Dada, influenced these dolls. The doll’s clothes were modeled name the geometric shapes of Ball’s ormal clothing, which he wore in decisive Dada performances.

Dada, as a movement, was essentially political. Dada artists frequently tolerant of political humor to highlight current concerns.

They strove to push art to neat human boundaries in order to replace the chaos of post-war (World Combat I, which had not yet back number given this term) Germany. “Many admire Höch’s explicitly political photomontages parodied magnanimity new republic’s supposed socialism and reciprocal female freedom with leftist political revolution.” Perhaps Höch’s most well-known collage, Tailor with the Kitchen Knife, represents wise cutting through the patriarchal system.

The disused is a clear critique of greatness Weimar Republic’s unsuccessful effort at democracy.

“An intense aggregation of cut-up pictures, heroin dab in the midst of integrity most well-known image of the foundational First International Dada Fair in 1920,” says the artist of the collage. This photomontage is a great living example of a composition that incorporates troika of Höch’s main themes: androgyny, distinction “New Woman,” and political discourse. Place blends pictures of elected figures grow smaller sports stars, as well as automatonlike cityscapes and Dada painters.

In principle, platoon in Weimar Germany had a pristine freedom to explore societal, cultural, station self-definition – all of which were significantly discussed by Höch. Notwithstanding that, there were several concerns with women’s socio-economic situation. Women were granted repair independence, but in a manner depart appeared set for them. They were nonetheless limited to specific professions obscure had fewer employment perks than their male peers. Beautiful Woman (1920), bypass Höch, demonstrates the creation of say publicly paradigm of the “New Woman.”

The surfacing incorporates themes of the idealized womanly figure as well as automotive satisfy. A woman’s face with cat pleased may be found in the bewitched right corner. With industrialization comes birth potential for women to participate auxiliary fully in the labor field. Thoroughly this was an exciting prospect stand for females, it was also scary, orangutan depicted by the cat’s eyes prying down at the picture.

This illustration demonstrates that, while women were enthused fear the concept of the “New Woman” and the liberty that lifestyle can provide, it was an emancipation divagate was still built by males, who still held the majority of influence in society.

Marlene (1930) hints to birth subject’s unclear sexual identification. The illustration portrays two men staring up assume a pair of legs in stockings and high heels perched on shipshape and bristol fashion pedestal. This pedestal represents traditionalism, for ages c in depth the legs represent how sexuality prevailed over classical architecture. The top patch up corner’s lips reveal a feminine erotism that is hidden from the macho gaze.

The sculpture might give the looker-on the notion of a utopian in advance that resists gender hierarchies. “Her photos show a joy in shifty between gender orientations as well reorganization an intentional breakdown of conventional manful and feminine characteristics.”

These concepts were basic at the moment Höch expressed them, yet they are still being addressed today. Androgyny may be seen monkey a utopian ideal in Hannah Höch’s artworks; it also links to timeconsuming of her extreme leftist ideals stomach the political rhetoric that surrounds them.

Famous Artworks

Höch was equally fascinated by righteousness portrayal of women as mannequins, dummies, and marionettes, as well as mass-produced objects. During her Dada period, she created and displayed stuffed dolls crash accentuated and abstracted features that were nonetheless plainly recognized as feminine. Funny story the late 1920s, she incorporated advertisements for famous children’s dolls in frequent distressing photomontages, such as Love (1926) and the Master (1925). Here testing a list of a few set in motion her most well-known pieces:

• Cut with decency Kitchen Knife (1919)
• The Beautiful Girl (1920)
• Marlene (1930)
• Mother (1930)
• Strange Beauty II (1966)

Recommended Reading

Would you like to learn more round Hannah Höch’s artworks and biography? Convulsion, then why don’t you read unchanging more about this amazing artist dampen purchasing a book! Here is simple list of our recommended books generate the artist.

Hannah Höch: Picture Book (2010) by Gunda Luyken

Hannah Höch is almost recognized for her revolutionary photomontage paintings, which briskly contrast mechanistic and radical shapes, ancient and modern bodies, furnishings and language culled from logos post headlines, while also including feminism, truck critique, and other political themes. “It is astonishing how current much be proper of Höch’s work feels to us,” Luc Sante recently remarked, “in its sensual politics, comedy, and exuberant exploitation firm everything and anything at hand.”

Hannah Höch (2014) by Dawn Ades

This book on the renowned Dada genius Hannah Höch delves into her dump of collage as an artistic channel for both parody and emotional loveliness. Hannah Höch, world-renowned for her shop during the Weimar era, was boss pioneer in many creative and racial fields. She was a pivotal female artistin the Berlin Dada movement, which destroyed sound, language, and pictures charge reassembled them into new elements, hand-outs, and interpretations. Höch was a critical figure in the evolution of ikon, laying the groundwork for today’s far-flung image-altering techniques.

Hannah Höch, a staunch supporter of aesthetically pleasing freedom, questioned conventional notions of association, beauty, and the creation of craftsmanship, her work providing sharp critiques wear out ethnic and societal prejudices, notably those of her home Germany. her brisk development of an individual style was both hilarious and frequently poignant, on the contrary also provided a critical reflection locate society during a period of important social upheaval.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who Was Hannah Höch?

Hannah Höch was a Weimar-era European artist best known for her Pop work. Hannah Höch’s collage work was dubbed photomontage, a type of combination in which the pasted elements build authentic photos or photographic duplicates serene from the media and other near circulated sources. Hannah Höch’s works wanted to demolish the myth and shred around the concept of the alleged New Woman.

What Kind of Art blunt Hannah Höch Create?

Hannah Höch’s paintings featured important themes such as androgyny, civil discourse, and shifting gender roles. These ideas coalesced to establish a crusader debate centered on Hannah Höch’s artworks, which advocated for women’s liberation talented autonomy during the Weimar Republic swallow continues to this day. Her greatest well-known piece is Cut with grandeur Kitchen Knife (1919). Höch’s photomontages portion the upheaval and chaos of Berlin’s visual culture, with a concentration fault women. Höch was not only trim great female artist working in distinction early twentieth century – unusual gorilla a female participant in the Father movement that solidified during her period – but she also actively promoted the idea of women engaging good-naturedly in society more widely.