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John Heartfield Photomontages

In spring 2005, the Acquisitions Committee allocated the purchase of sixty-three John Heartfield photomontages published in the German illustrated newspapers Arbeiter Illustrierte Zeitung and Volks Illustriete from 1930 to 1937.

Between 1930 and 1938, Arbeiter Illustrierte Zeitung (AIZ), later renamed Volks Illustriete in 1936, printed 237 of Heartfield's photomontages, as either front or back covers of the paper, or occasional double-page spreads. Willi Münzenberg, a German communist politician, started AIZ in 1925, at a time when many other illustrated journals were established. During the 1920s, editors and artists of German papers began experimenting with graphic design and layout, both to communicate political arguments effectively and to be attractive to readers; Münzenberg used AIZ as a means of disseminating a more progressive message to workers, who he felt were not otherwise being served by the press. Since many readers bought the paper from newsstands, engaging cover images were crucial to the paper's viability.

Heartfield created meaning through the relationships between the text and the photographic fragments, between the images and the social comment, and between the issues raised in the photomontages and the perspectives of the articles in the magazine. His satirical photomontages on Germany's political climate and international events are complex works about war and peace, and the links he perceived between fascism, business, and war.