Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

German artist John Heartfield (Helmut Herzfeld, 1891-1968), is known primarily as one of the inventors of photomontage - pictures made from from fragments of photographs and other visual material. This book is a study of the artist's work.

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Publishers Weekly Review

A member of Berlin's short-lived Dada group and a pioneer of photomontage, German artist John Heartfield (born Helmut Herzfeld) broke with Dada to espouse a higly politicized art. With vitriolic wit, Heartfield (1891-1968), like his friend George Grosz, unmasked materialism, bourgeois pretensions and the abuse of power in Germany in the late 1920s. His searing posters and graphics attacked Hitler, the Nazis and conservatives. After spending the years 1938-1950 as a refugee in London, Heartfield, an ardent Communist, returned to East Germany and won official support, yet his high-voltage art has suffered from neglect. With 289 plates (83 in color), this kinetic catalogue of a touring exhibit covers the artist's political pictures, theater sets and jackets for books by Upton Sinclair, John Dos Passos and Maxim Gorki. Essays by German art historians Pachnicke and Honnef discuss Heartfield's moral vision, montage techniques and ties to modern art, and his influence as an embodiment of the activist-artist. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved