Hannah Höch was an important member of the Berlin Dada movement, a pioneer of photomontage and a feminist icon.
Höch was born in 1889, in Gotha, Germany. She was forced to leave school at 15 to take care of a sister, and was not able to resume her studies until she was 22 when she began classes at the School of Applied Arts in Berlin under the guidance of glass designer Harold Bergen. In 1914, her studies were cut short due to the start of World War I. She returned to Gotha were she worked with the Red Cross until her return to Berlin in 1915. Höch returned to her studies, this time choosing to study painting and graphic design with Emil Orlik at the National Institute of the Museum of Arts and Crafts. That same year, she met Raoul Haussmann, a member of the Berlin Dada Movement and became romantically involved with him.
In 1918, Haussmann introduced Höch to the rest of the Berlin Dada group, which included artists George Grosz, Wieland Herzfelde, and Wieland’s older brother, John Heartfield. Höch began experimenting with her art, creating works that make no reference to the natural world through painting, collage and photomontage. Höch and the Dadaists were the first to use a photograph as the dominant medium of the montage and used found images to reflect the confusion and chaos of the postwar era. The method of creating art required no academic training, and was thought of as ‘anti-art’ in it’s rejection of the popular German Expressionist aesthetic of the time.
Höch began creating a series of photomontages using images of women and ethnographic objects from museums in the 1920’s and nine of her works were in the 1920 First International Dada Fair. Höch felt a part of the women’s movement of the 1920’s and this is show in one of her most famous works, Cut with the Kitchen Knife Through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany (1919). The piece was one of the most prominently displayed and well-received works at the show and portrayed German politicians in contrast with (male) Dadaist artists. Höch had only been allowed to participate in the exhibition after Haussmann threatened to withdraw his work if she was not included. As the only woman in the group, Höch was frequently patronised by and kept at the margins of the group despite her critical success, she references the hypocrisy of the Berlin Dada group and German society as a whole in her photomontage, Da-Dandy. In 1922, she distanced herself from both the group and Haussmann. One of her final Dadaist works was My House-Sayings (1922). The piece is a subverted version of a traditional German guest book which is covered with sayings by Dadaists and German writers, including Goethe and Nietzsche.
From 1916 to 1926, Höch had worked at Ullstein Verlag to support herself and pay for her education. She wrote articles on and designed patterns for Die Dame (The Lady) and Die Praktische Berlinerin (The Practical Berlin Woman). Her position allowed her access to an abundant supply of images and text that she could use in her work. She would later use references to these patterns in her work. After leaving the Dada group, Höch began to experiment further with her work and criticism of constructed gender roles, which had been one of the things that had distinguished her work from that of her contemporaries in the Dada period. Höch decided that she would represent and embody the “New Woman” who wore her hair short, supported herself, made her own choices and worked to rid herself of the shackles of society’s traditional female roles.
From 1926 – 1929, Höch lived in The Hague where she became friends with Kurt Schwitters and Piet Mondrian among others. She met poet Mathilda (Til) Brugman during this time and the two began a ‘private love’ relationship that would last a decade. Their relationship was thought of as scandalous, and further inspired her to examine traditional gender roles, cultural conventions, and the construction of identity. She created images about same sex love during these years. Höch was also interested in the representation of women as dolls, mannequins and puppets as well as the idea of women as products for mass consumption. In the late 1920’s she used advertising images of popular children’s dolls in several somewhat disturbing photomontages, including The Master (1925) and Love (c. 1926).
In 1934, Höch was named a “cultural Bolshevist” by the Nazis. She moved to a cottage in Heiligensee, on the outskirts of Berlin during World War II where she kept a low profile until it was safe for her to resurface. Her work was referenced in relation to the artists included in the infamous exhibition Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) in 1937, a propagandistic display of works considered ‘degenerate’ by Hitler and the National Socialists. Höch used her garden to safeguard a trove of controversial materials related to the Dadaists, including works by Hausmann and Kurt Schwitters.
After the war, Höch continued to create photomontages and exhibit them internationally to great acclaim, culminating in a retrospective at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and the Berlin Nationalgalerie in 1976. She continued to create art and exhibit until her death in 1978.
Höch was a pioneer of photomontage and her support of the women’s movement led to it becoming popular again in the late 60’s and early 70’s thanks to feminist scholars and artists. Her political works from the Dada period had equated women’s liberation with social and political revolution and her critique of the mass culture beauty, fashion, advertising photography and consumer culture is still relevant today, as is her explorations of gender identity and criticism of racial discrimination.