photomontage

photomontage. Term applied to a technique of making a pictorial composition from parts of different photographs and to the composition so made. The technique has antecedents in the 19th century, particularly in the work of O. G. Rejlander (1813–75), a Swedish photographer and painter active in England. He tried to expand the expressive range of photography by experimenting with double exposures and printing from several negatives onto a single sheet, as in his elaborate allegory The Two Ways of Life (1857), printed from 30 negatives onto two sheets joined together. However, as the term is now understood, photomontage involves cutting out, arranging, and pasting down pre-existing photographic images rather than the manipulation of negatives taken for a particular purpose. Photomontage in this sense was largely the creation of the Dadaists (specifically the Berlin Dadaists), who used the technique for political propaganda, social criticism, and generally to assist the shock tactics in which they indulged. Raoul Hausmann (1886–1971) claimed to have invented photomontage in 1918; this is a dubious claim, but certainly he ranks with Heartfield and Hannah Höch (1889–1978) as one of the main pioneers and most brilliant exponents of the technique. Photomontage has also been memorably used by, for example, Max Ernst and other Surrealists and by Pop artists such as Richard Hamilton, but it is now mainly associated with advertising.