My first encounter with Hannah Höch was through my first year introductory Art History class. From the start, I was hooked; whether it was her politically charged Dada artwork, her innovation in the style of photomontage, her feminist values, or her bisexuality, something about Höch resonated with me. Both an incredible and unique artist and someone with important political views, Hannah Höch is a fascinating figure in the history of art.
However, it took me a very long time to actually start actively researching Höch. I looked in my school libraries, and on academic databases online, but there were few sources on her. Other than Wikipedia (finding sources was a struggle!) most were, unsurprisingly, in German – thus, Höch became one of my biggest motivations for starting to learn the language. If Hannah Höch was a male, would she be better documented and remembered? (Rhetorical question). It seems, even though she was one of the few female Dada artists, the world mostly forgot about Höch. So here I am, reminding you.
Early years, World War I, and the Berlin Dadaists
Höch was born in 1889 in Gotha, in what was then the German Empire, née Anna Therese Johanne Höch. She attended school, but having a traditional family, Höch left school in 1904 to care for her youngest sister. In 1912, she attended the College of Applied Arts in Berlin, studying glass design and graphic arts instead of fine arts as per her father’s wishes. Not long after, she left school, returning to Gotha, to work with the Red Cross during the First World War. She then returned to Berlin, three years later, to study graphics, a year later. Later, Höch worked for a magazine and newspaper publisher, working in a handicrafts department, doing crochet, knitting, and embroidery. She believed handicrafts to be an important art form, overlooked because of their feminine associations.
This work contains the images of German president Friedrich Ebert and his Minister of Defense, Gustav Noske, in bathing suits, evoking foolishness. They are placed against an embroidered background, a pattern of flowers and butterflies surrounding a woman. The effect is comical, but provides a scathing commentary on the President and Minister frolicking unaware of the hardships of the German people in this time. The use of embroidery, a women’s occupation, also criticizes patriarchy and arbitrary hierarchy of art forms in society.
While studying in Berlin, Höch began a relationship with Raoul Hausmann, a member of the Berlin Dada group. The relationship would prove tumultuous, as Haussmann and Höch developed wildly different values and desires. However, through this relationship Höch would soon become a member of the Berlin group herself. Additionally, along with Haussmann and many important professional connections, she pioneered the art form of photomontage: composite photographs formed rearranging and overlapping two or more photographs into a new image. Also notably, During this time, she renamed herself Hannah, adding the Hs, to deliberately make it palindromic.
Höch was the only woman in the Berlin Dada group, and her male counterparts singled her out for her gender, unique, progressive mindset, and strong political views. Dada itself was a male-oriented world, with an extremely masculine perspective on society and progressiveness. Dada originated as a negative reaction to the first World War, its purpose to ridicule the meaninglessness of the modern world, and to reject the logic and aesthetics of capitalist society. It was a multi-art movement, spanning visual, literary, and sound media. It began circa 1915, in Zurich, spreading across Europe and North America. The name itself expressed meaninglessness, as artist Francis Picabia explained: “DADA, as for it, it smells of nothing, it is nothing, nothing, nothing”. But Dada has another clear connotation: dada, the father, the patriarch. The Dada movement was clearly a man’s world, a man’s ideal, with no place for a woman to contribute meaningfully.
As a Woman Artist and Dadaist
The Berlin Dadaists praised Höch for her “good girl” behaviour and “slightly nun-like grace”. She was necessary to them only for providing food and drink to her male colleagues, not as a fellow member, or an artist. None of her male colleagues, accepted her as an artist, and she was nearly rejected to participate in the First International Dada Fair in Berlin in 1920, a major foundational event for the Dadaists.
As the only woman in the Berlin Dadaist group, and eventually her progressive views began to show. She was known for her masculine or androgynous appearance, her bisexuality, and her feminist ideals. Her relationship with Haussmann was ending; he did not agree with her opinions of art, nor respected her as an artist. She wanted to marry him, but he despised the bourgeoisie concept, and believed the only way she could reach her full potential as a woman and in their relationship was to have a child. Although Höch wanted children, she had abortions both times she was pregnant by him. She would soon end their seven-year relationship.
As a woman in a male-oriented domain, in times of women’s suffrage, Höch’s work was definitely influenced by sexism and feminism. In Germany, suffrage began in 1918. During the war, women worked in factories while men were fighting, and the workplace gradually became more accessible to women. After the war, the men returned and took back their jobs; women could still work, but were left with the worst jobs, far less pay, and were still of course expected to keep up with their childcare and housekeeping duties, with no more assistance from their husbands. Höch, along with many women in this time, began to pursue the idea of the “New Woman”: free to vote, free to enjoy and even begin sexual encounters, and free financially; an energetic, professional and androgynous figure, who is ready to take her place as man’s equal.
During the rise of the ideal of the “New Woman”, Höch’s work highlights the importance of female voices in a male world. The work uses clippings from women’s magazines to high;ight the complexities and importance of the female’s role in a rapidly modernizing but recovering post-war society.
Höch’s photomontage,Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada through the Beer-Belly of the Weimar Republic, from 1919, was one of her most obvious commentaries on the patriarchal society she lived in. The title’s use of descriptive language like “beer-belly” suggest the masculine-oriented nature of the Weimar Republic, while her use of the Kitchen-Knife motif brings to mind domesticity; the kitchen as the woman’s domain.
Later Life and Legacy
Four years after her relationship with Hausmann ended, Höch began a new relationship with Dutch writer and linguist Mathilda Brugman. They never labelled their relationship as lesbian, but rather a “private love relationship”. Their relationship lasted nine years.
Hoch reportedly first encountered the concept of photomontage through images German soldiers sent home to their families; pictures of their faces glued onto images of musketeers. She realized collage had the power to alienate images, by giving them new meaning through incorporating them with other motifs and contexts. Her work influenced many artists, and her beliefs inspired many modern feminists. Her aesthetic may have even influenced the cut-up aesthetic of the punk movement from the 1980s.
During the second world war, she remained in Berlin, living in secret after so many of her fellow Dadaists had fled, having been persecuted for their “degenerate art”. The Nazis banned her work, and many dubbed her a “cultural Bolshevik”. Her ability to live in secret proves her relative anonymity; she never wanted to be a celebrity, unlike her fellow Dada artists, with their exhibitionist and high-profile natures. During these years, she had a six-year marriage with Kurt Matthies, until they divorced. After the War, she moved toward more abstract themes, now popular with many artists in this era. Her work from this time is far less well-known and critically well-received.
As such an important figure in the history of art and feminist history, it’s a shame Hannah Höch’s name is not better known today. A pioneering figure of the Photomontage style and Dada movement; a feminist and queer woman in a time when neither attribute was accepted or even commonly experienced in society; and simply an extremely politically relevant and uniquely talented artist, I believe Höch is an invaluable figure in the History of Art. I hope this post served as an interesting introduction, or at least provided you with more information on this figure.
To end this post, I’ll leave you with a homework assignment: read this short story, The Painter, by Höch. It’s a scathing satire on the patriarchal nature of art, Dada, and German society. The short story depicts a male painter seeking to capture the “likeness between the nature of chives and the female soul” through painting. It’s interesting to see through Höch’s eyes in a different art form.
Leave a comment if you have any questions or think I missed anything important!
One Comment
Rachel Edwards
Thank you for highlighting the artistic contributions of Hannah Höch. It is so important to recognize the influence of lesser known artists. This is a very informative and interesting piece!