Between 1930 and 1938, Berlin-born John Heartfield, whose given name was Helmut Herzfeld, created political photomontages; today, they can be regarded as symbols of the fall of the Weimar Republic and Hitler’s dictatorship. A bitter opponent of the National Socialists, the virtuoso photo editor of the front pages of the Arbeiter Illustrierten Zeitung lighted on images that were often astonishingly clear-sighted and powerful.

This publication offers a current, undisguised view of this group of works by Heartfield (1891–1968), whose oeuvre not only makes him an outstanding artist but an extraordinary contemporary witness. The book draws upon the artist’s own works, some of which were not generally available until 1989, and also sheds some light on what was—at least from today’s vantage point—his somewhat too unreserved support of the Communist Party. The early Dadaist years, his friendship with George Grosz, and the legendary book covers Heartfield designed in the twenties for the Malik Verlag, which he founded with his brother Wieland, round off the volume.

Exhibition schedule: Berlinische Galerie, Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur, Berlin, May 29–August 31, 2009