Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam Acquires Rare Work by Pioneer Hannah Höch

Hannah Höch (1889-1978) was a German artist with close ties to the Dada movement. She is best known for her groundbreaking collages and photomontages. Höch cut photographs out of illustrated magazines and fashion magazines and combined them into surreal compositions. Her often witty images challenge conventional ideas of gender and identity. Much of her work comments on political and social issues of the day, such as women’s role in society and the rise of Nazism. The rebellious and critical spirit of the interwar period are captured in Höch’s bold compositions of everyday images borrowed from the mass media. Through her radical experimentations, she made a major contribution to the artistic language of the avant-garde, which continues to echo to this day.

In Aus der Sammlung: Aus einem ethnographischen Museum no. IX, from a series of seventeen photomontages, Hannah Höch spliced images of Karl Zörgiebel, Berlin’s police chief at the time, with an Egyptian torso and women’s legs. She produced the work in response to the bloody suppression of traditional workers’ rallies in Berlin in 1929. Zörgiebel banned the parades and ordered shots to be fired into the crowd, leading to 30 deaths and dozens wounded. In protest, Höch produced a collage in which she critiques and mocks gender roles and our view of ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’.

Image : Hannah Höch, Aus der Sammlung: Aus einem ethnografischen Museum Nr. IX, ca. 1929. Collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam collection. Acquired with the support of the Rembrandt Association (thanks in part to its Helze Fund) and the Mondriaan Fund.