Dada and Surrealist Photography
Started: 1919
Ended: 1960s
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KEY ARTISTS
 | Man Ray Quick View Artist Page |
| Man Ray |  |
| Man Ray was an American artist in Paris whose photograms, objects, drawings, and other works played an important role in Dada, Surrealism, modern photography, and avant-garde art at large. Art Story: Man Ray Artist Page | ||
 | Eugène Atget Quick View Artist Page |
| Eugène Atget | |
| Eugène Atget was a French photographer who in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century carefully and comprehensively documented the street scenes, architecture and artists of Paris. Atget, whose work was characterized by long exposure, famously sold his photographs to a great number of Parisian artists, including Man Ray, which were used as visual aids for painting. Art Story: Eugène Atget Artist Page | ||
 | Hans Bellmer Quick View Artist Page |
| Hans Bellmer | |
| Hans Bellmer was a twentieth-century German avant-garde photographer and draughtsman, commonly associated with the Surrealism movement. Bellmer is best known for creating a series of pubescent female dolls in the 1930s, which were designed as a direct criticism of Nazi-controlled Germany and its idealization of the perfect human form. Bellmer eventually fled Germany for Paris and was embraced by Breton and the French Surrealists. Art Story: Hans Bellmer Artist Page | ||
 | René Magritte Quick View Artist Page |
| René Magritte | |
| René Magritte has achieved great popular acclaim for his idiosyncratic approach to Surrealism. His beautiful and troubling images of bowler-hatted men and nature scenes are popular in art and general circles. Art Story: René Magritte Artist Page | ||
 | Dora Maar Quick View Artist Page |
| Dora Maar | |
| Dora Maar was best known for her Surrealist photographic works. Maar also famous for being one of Picasso's great loves. Art Story: Dora Maar Artist Page | ||
 | Marcel Duchamp Quick View Artist Page |
| Marcel Duchamp | |
| The French artist Marcel Duchamp was an instrumental figure in the avant-garde art worlds of Paris and New York. Moving through Dada, Surrealism, readymades, sculpture, and installation, his work involves conceptual play and an implicit attack on bourgeois art sensibilities. Art Story: Marcel Duchamp Artist Page | ||
Summary of Dada and Surrealist Photography
In post-WWI Germany and Paris, a ground-breaking practice of photography emerged, inspired by Dada's improvisational practices and the Surrealist's foray into the unconscious, dream, and fantasy realms. Whereas photography had been widely used as a tool to document reality, artists began to work with the camera and progressive techniques to create images jarringly detached from photography's original uses. These visuals oftentimes challenged the viewer's perceptions with a strong basis in conceptualism, conjuring the uncanny, ethereal, or unordinary. Other times, they emphasized the artist's intent, by presenting familiar images unlatched from their usual context, inviting new perspectives of the ordinary. This practice would spread to America and become a forebear to the decades-long exploration of the possibilities of the photographic image that remains common in today's art world.
Key Ideas
Beginnings:
The Dada movement was established in Germany after World War I. It attempted to create a new kind of art that was valued primarily for its conceptual properties rather than focusing on aesthetics or literal documentation. Dada quickly spread to France and the US (to Paris and New York in particular), but many of its proponents who worked with photography remained in Germany. One of the key ways in which the Dadaists attacked traditional art was through photomontage. Artists such as Max Ernst and Hannah Höch used scissors and glue to cut up found (and occasionally original) photographs from a number of sources and reassemble them, using contrast and juxtaposition to emphasize their message. The use of photomontage as an art form was one of the most important ways in which the Dadaists shook up the traditional aesthetic order of the art world.
Important Art and Artists of Dada and Surrealist Photography | |
  | Cut with the Kitchen Knife Through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany (1919-20)Artist: Hannah Höch Artwork description & Analysis: Though one of Höch's earliest works, this ambitious collage is unusual within her canon for being particularly large; it measures 35 x 57 inches. The piece was exhibited in the First International Dada Fair, which took place in Berlin in 1920, and it was reportedly one of the most popular pieces in the show. In the top right corner Höch pasted together images of "anti-Dada" figures of the Weimar government and representatives of the old empire. Elsewhere in the collage, known proponents of Dada, such as Raoul Hausmann, are arranged in contrast to these establishment figures. Photomontage |
 Artwork Images | Dust Breeding (1920)Artist: Marcel Duchamp Artwork description & Analysis: This is an important example of early Surrealist photography, crossing the line between Dada and Surrealism in the early 1920s. It is a photograph taken by Man Ray of Marcel Duchamp's masterpiece The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (1915-1923) after it had sat for three years gathering dust in Duchamp's studio. Dust Breeding is an important early example of collaboration in Surrealism; where two artists utilized the combination of imagery to defy literal presentation and concoct an all-together new piece in which one media interrogates and challenges another. Silver gelatin print - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
 Artwork Images | Le Violon d'Ingres (Ingres's Violin) (1924)Artist: Man Ray Artwork description & Analysis: Le Violon d'Ingres is one of the best-known images in modern art. To create this work, Man Ray took a photograph of one of his favorite models, Kiki, and made her pose resemble a painting by Ingres. He subsequently painted two "F" symbols copied from the body of a violin onto the print, before re-photographing it. This is a powerful example of post-production manipulation being used to create a Surrealist effect in photography. Silver gelatin print - Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
More Dada and Surrealist Photography Artwork and Analysis:
Content compiled and written by Anna Souter
Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors
" Movement Overview and Analysis". [Internet]. . TheArtStory.org
Content compiled and written by Anna Souter
Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors
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First published on 05 Nov 2017. Updated and modified regularly. 
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