Hannah Höch (1889-1978) was a prolific artist and the only woman associated with the Berlin Dada group, known for her provocative photomontage compositions.
Hannah Höch (1889-1978) was a prolific artist and the only woman associated with the Berlin Dada group, known for her provocative photomontage compositions.
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Hello, from Wonder Media Network I’m Jenny Kaplan and this is Womanica.
Our story today takes us to Berlin in the early 20th century where our artist’s controversial photomontages challenged societal expectations -- and depictions -- of women. Her work is known for asking big questions in surprising and off-kilter ways.
Let’s talk about Hannah Höch.
Anna Therese Johanne Höch was born November 1, 1889. Her father Friedrich worked in insurance, her mother, Rose, was a painter. Hannah’s mother introduced her to art at a young age, and in her early teens, Hannah moved to Berlin and enrolled in the School of Applied Arts in Berlin-Charlottenburg. There, she studied crafts like calligraphy and embroidery, as well as glass design, book-binding and textile design.
Hannah’s studies were temporarily interrupted by the outbreak of World War I, but in 1915 she was able to re-enroll in the School of Applied Arts. This time, with an emphasis on painting and graphic design. That same year, she met and started a relationship with Austrian artist Raoul Hausmann. A few years later, in 1918, Raoul introduced Hannah to the Berlin Dada circle.
Dada was an artistic movement that had sprung up a few years prior in Zurich, and quickly spread to Berlin, Paris and New York. It represented a total rejection of traditional artistic practices that required training -- like sculpture and painting -- in favor of using everyday materials. It sought to embrace nonsense in the wake of the mass tragedy of World War I.
From 1916 onward, Hannah worked part-time for a Berlin magazine publisher where she designed patterns for household crafts, such as knitting, crocheting and embroidery. Her salary was enough for her to support herself and live independently. Plus, the job gave her access to a large array of printed images and text she could use for her collages.
Although collage or montage work was practiced by many, Hannah and the Dadaists are credited with embracing photography as its primary medium. Hannah spliced together photographs alongside discordant images to reflect on the confusion and chaos that enveloped the Weimar Government in the post-WWI era. Hannah was the only woman in the Berlin Dada circle, and her photomontages often focused on perceptions of gender.
One of Hannah’s earliest works entitled “Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany” was displayed as a prominent centerpiece of the first Dada International Fair in 1920. It’s a political and social critique of Weimar era society, complete with distorted images of heads of state, maps of countries where women can vote, and industrial machinery.
Despite Hannah’s role in elevating the Dadaist movement, she was often ostracized within the Berlin group due to the fact that she was the sole female member. Not long after Hannah’s success at the Dada International Fair, the Dada movement in Berlin splintered. Around this time, Hannah’s relationship with Raoul also came to an end.
Between 1924 and 1930 Hannah created another series of roughly 20 collages exploring themes of gender and race. Her work -- and life -- sought to reflect a “New Woman”. Someone who wore their hair short, earned their own living, and made their own decisions. In her art, the New Woman was often juxtaposed against images of traditional sculptures of women you might see in a museum. During this time, Hannah started up a romantic relationship with a woman, Dutch author Til Brugman. The relationship was scandalous for the time. They didn’t last.
In 1929, Hannah returned to Germany where a new threat awaited her. With the rise of Naziism, the art world within Germany was being strangled. Hitler designated artwork he wasn’t fond of as “degenerate” and “un-German”. Dadaists were designated “cultural Bolsheviks” and many of Hannah’s peers fled the country. But Hannah instead chose to remain. She made one daring act to save papers and art works from the Berlin Dada circle from Nazi destruction - but otherwise, she withdrew from pubic life during the war. She took refuge in a small cottage outside of Berlin where she tended to her garden and found inexpensive sources for her artwork. During this time, she was married and divorced.
Following World War II, Hannah remained working in Berlin. Her style as an artist had grown to encapsulate many different mediums with clear nods to other movements like expressionism, symbolism and New Objectivity. In the late 1960s and 70s, her work finally started to break through to greater audiences, in part due to the work of feminist scholars who sought to reclaim the previously undervalued contributions of female artists throughout the early 20th century.
Hannah passed away in Berlin on May 31, 1978.
All month, we’re talking about visionaries.
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Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator. And special thanks to Alesandra Tejeda who curated this month’s theme.
Talk to you tomorrow!