John Heartfield Quotes

German Dada Artist John Heartfield

John Heartfield In A Reflective Mood

John Heartfield, born Helmut Herzfeld, (June 19, 1891–April 26, 1968) was a founder of Berlin Club Dada, an influential graphics design innovator, and a pioneering theatre costume and set designer. He was most famous for the use of his art as a political weapon during the Weimar Republic and against the insanity of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich.

Despite the violent content in many of his collages (photomontages), Heartfield was a lifelong pacifist.

Near the end of his life, he was asked whether his photomontages were made in the framework of party function or on personal artistic initiative. His answer was quick and pointed: “I was never a functionary.”

In an interview with the English art historian Francis Klingender, Heartfield described Dada as an effort to disturb the higher impulses of the intellect – the spiritual, mystical, and subjective – but only in order to get at the truth behind them. Dada was the first “ism,” he said, to insist on a new content rather than simply a new form.

The two paragraphs above are excerpts from the essay, Heartfield and Modern Art by Nancy Roth in John Heartfield (ABRAMS Publishing).