Setting the Scene

In response to the brief  Restless Times/A Picture Of Us  I have decided to introduce the participants to photomontage of the 1930s from the Dada and Surrealist movements. Dada was a literary and artistic movement born in Europe at a time when the horror of World War I was being played out and was, among other things, a protest against the barbarism of the War and what Dadaists believed was an oppressive intellectual rigidity in both art and everyday society.

Dada appropriated images from contemporary society, such as magazines and newspapers, and subverted them to create confusing or opposing messages. Prominent artists in this field were: George Grosz, John Heartfield, Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch, Kurt Schwitters and Max Ernst. Artists working in this way used text and image to critique not only the art world, but also society in general. For this reason, many of them were classed as degenerates during Hitler's rise to power and had to flee from mainland Europe to seek refuge in other countries, including Britain.