Research :Photomontage.. (please begin at the bottom of the page and work up )

Mari Mahr

Mari Mahr, mid 1970s onwards

''Living in London after her family escaped from Budapest in 1972, Mahr seems to have begun making photomontages from the the mid 1970s onward (?). Her work contains themes of personal childhood identity and loss, and her personal experience of anti semitism in communist Hungary."

http://www.d-log.info/timeline/index.html

I think Mahr's work it really interesting and quite influential, the choice and composition of her images are very interesting and look almost like they could be used for a fairytale story or play.

John Heathfield

''John Heartfield was a German artist whose politically charged photomontages were banned in his home country during the Nazi regime.

Heartfield was born in 1891 as Helmut Herzfeld. He changed his name in part as a way to protest World War I; he even feigned madness to avoid returning to the service. During the Weimar period he became a member of the Berlin DADA group. He used his collage work as a political medium, incorporating images from the political journals of the day. He edited "Der DADA" and organized the First International DADA Fair in Berlin in 1920.

Sharply critical of the Weimar Republic, Heartfield’s work was banned during the Third Reich, then rediscovered in the Democratic Republic in the late 1950s. Since then, his art has influenced generations of artists and graphic designers.''

www.towson.edu/heartfield

El  Lissitzky

El Lissitzky ' The constructor' 1924 (above)

''El  Lissitzky was a designer, typographer, artist, photographer, architect, and teacher (among other jobs). He had a great influence on the design work from the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements, and on modern commercial art and design.''
www.ibiblio.org

The image above is a self protrait of the artist. As they were going in to the modernist age he wanted to show himself off as a builder and designer. We can see that he uses overlayed geometric shapes, this was a technique that was often used by russian artists at the time.

''Photomontage is the process (and result) of making a composite photograph by cutting and joining a number of other photographs. The composite picture was sometimes photographed so that the final image is converted back into a seamless photographic print''.

http://artsytime.com/the-beginnings-of-photomontage/

         Martha Rosler

 (Above )                               
Cleaning the drapes
Bringing the War Home: House 
Beautiful, 1967-72, 


''she produced Bringing the War Home: House Beautiful (1967-72), a series of photomontages assembled from the pages of Life magazine, where news stories featuring images of the dead and wounded shared column inches with glossy adverts for consumer products.''


www.tate.org.uk
ome.earthlink.net


(above)
Red stripe kitchen: Bringing the War Home: House Beautiful, 1967-72,

1917-1920: the "Cottingley fairies"

We have all heard of the classic fairy tails, and this image captures our imagineation perfectly. Its a great example of early D.I.Y photo manipualtion. These particular images caused such controversy when first shown as many people belived them to be real . They were in fact cleverly constructed using paper cut outs and wire.

Photomontage

Photomontage is the process and result of making a composite photograph by cutting and joining a number of other photographs. The composite picture was sometimes photographed so that the final image is converted back into a seamless photographic print. A similar method, although one that does not use film, is realized today through image-editing software. This latter technique is referred to by professionals as "compositing", and in casual usage is often called "photoshopping".^[1]