John Heartfield
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John_Heartfield_(self-portrait).jpg
John Heartfield (June 19, 1891 - April 26, 1968) is the anglicised name of the German photomontage artist Helmut Herzfeld.
In 1918 Heartfield joined the Berlin Dada Club and the Communist Party of Germany. He was dismissed from the military film service on account of his support for the strike following the assassination of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. With George Grosz he founded Die Pleite, a satirical magazine. After meeting Bertolt Brecht, who was to have a profound influence on his art, Heartfield developed photomontage into a form of political and artistic representation. After the Nazi takeover in Germany, Heartfield relocated to Czechoslovakia in 1933, and in 1938, fearing an invasion by Germany, Heartfield left for England. He returned to East Germany in 1954.
Influence
His work has influenced the Slovenian industrial group Laibach and many of his most famous photomontages have been used and altered by them for their album artwork. The 2004 music video Megalomaniac by the American band Incubus was also heavily inspired by Heartfield's imagery.
External links
- Photomontages against the Nazis (http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/2554/john_heartfield.html)
- Heartfield vs. Hitler (http://www.brasscheck.com/heartfield/gallery.html)
- Heartfield - Life and Work (http://www.towson.edu/heartfield/2.html)
- Cut & Paste - A History of Photomontage (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/davepalmer/cutandpaste/heartfield.html)
- John Heartfield and the Free German League of Culture in Great Britain (http://www.wcml.org.uk/holdings/ww2biblio.htm#johnh)de:John Heartfield