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Raoul Hausmann

Born – Vienna, Austria 1886

Died – Limoges, France 1971

The son of a painter, Raoul Hausmann moved to Berlin in 1901. Here, in 1918, he was one of the founders of the Berlin Dada movement, with George Grosz and John Heartfield. Hausmann edited the first issue of their magazine Der Dada which, with its disordered typography, anticipated the development of a new artistic method. Known as photomontage. As a method of collage which involved pasting superimposed photographs, photomontage showed an awareness of Cubist assemblage while retaining a distinctly political and satirical edge. Hausmann explained that “this term translates our aversion at playing the artist, and, thinking of ourselves as engineers…we meant to construct, to assemble our works.” The Art Critic, with its absurd and defaced figure, furthers this anti-art theme. He was a close friend of Kurt Schwitters, who, like Hausmann, experimented with sound-poems and typography. German artist Hannah Höch was Hausmann’s companion during the Dada era. Her witty collages are of equal merit to Hausmann and other Dada luminaries. After the decline of Dada, Hausmann abandoned painting for photography, writing and the study of optics.

Masterpieces:

• Men are Angels and Live in Heaven
• Gurk

Text: The A-Z of Art, Nicola Hodge and Libby Anson.

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