Week Two: Research Post

Illustrative Collage Photography

Collage originated from France as the name suggests, however examples of collage being traced right back to Victorian England, around 1911 collage was brought to life more by modernist artists such as Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso.

This type of photography gives artists a unique way of producing the work they are picturing, as it includes physical elements that can have endless creative options. This could be why surrealists such as Henri Matisse, Hannah Höch, Man Ray, as there are ‘no rules’ and the possibilities for how abstract and strange the work can be, are infinite.

Hannah Hoch was one of the first artists to combine collage with photography, with her collage of ‘Cultural Epoch in Germany’ being created in 1919. ‘Photomontages’ are a perfect way to create ‘other worlds’ from many different reassembled prints, and creating elements that weren’t possible beforehand.

I have looked into the work of Hannah Hoch for this post as I think she is a pinnacle to why collage photography is so popular today as she strove for women to work more creatively in society as it was so rare back in the 18/1900’s, she created a long series of work to promote the idea of the ‘new woman’. Her accomplishments included being a key progenitor of the self conscious practice of collaging diverse photographic elements from different sources to make art.

This technique leads to creating insightful meanings through seeing collages of related or even unrelated images and was adopted by Dada and surrealist artists of her era, and post modern conceptual artists such as sculptors and photographers.