Hannah Höch
Toulouse-Lautrec zugeeignet
1957
Collage of imprinted colour papers on card 25.7 x 23.5 cm Framed under glass. Monogrammed ,H.H.' in red orange brush lower right, titled 'Toulouse-Lautrec zugeeignet.' below in ink on added paper label. Signed and dated "Höch 1957" in black ink verso and an exhibition note on Rosen 1959; Dated '1957' in pencil in the mat opening on the support below the work and estate stamp"HANNAH HÖCH / NACHLASS SAMMLUNG / CARLSBERG HÖCH" inside. - The surface of the collage partly with age-related light rubbing traces, the upper margin bumped with minimal crease mark. The card slightly arched.
Hannah Höch made her first collages in 1916; her first photomontages were created in 1917/1918 in direct connection with DADA. This newly developed experimental form of expression would become the characteristic feature of her artistic oeuvre: the technique never ceased to fascinate her. After World War II, with the emergence of magazines illustrated in colour, she used paper cuttings like those in this captivating example of her work - a photo collage from the late 1950s featuring the ironic dedication “Toulouse-Lautrec zugeeignet”. In a wider sense the term photo collage, which is applied to these works by Hannah Höch, implies the use of reproduced and printed photos. The poetry of the image develops out of the free, unfettered combination of cut-out elements; at the same time, the systematic application of the pure technique is wedded with the promptings of the artist's brilliant fantasy. She creates little decontextualised artistic jewels, abstract and surreal, which still grow out of the spirit of Dada and utilise a mass-produced waste product.
Provenance
Artist's estate; Galerie Nierendorf, Berlin (1971); Private collection, North Rhine-Westphalia
Exhibitions
Berlin 1959 (Galerie Gerd Rosen), Hannah Höch - Collagen, cat. no. 35 (notation verso); Berlin 1964 (Galerie Nierendorf), Kunstblätter der Galerie Nierendorf: Hannah Höch (vol.6), cat. no. 62 with illus.; London 1966 (Marlborough Gallery), Hannah Höch, cat. no. 41; Berlin/Düsseldorf 1971 (Akademie der Künste/Städtische Kunsthalle), Hannah Höch. Collagen aus den Jahren 1916 - 1971, cat. no. 126 ("Galerie Nierendorf"); Bielefeld 1973 (Kunsthalle Bielefeld), Hannah Höch, cat. no. 33; Paris/Berlin 1976 Musée d'Art Moderne de la ville de Paris/Nationalgalerie Berlin), Hannah Höch. Collagen, Gemälde, Aquarelle, Gouachen, Zeichnungen, cat. no. 140; Tübingen/Hanover/Wuppertal/Frankfurt 1980/1981 (Kunsthalle/Sprengelmuseum/Von der Heydt-Museum/Kunstverein), Hannah Höch - Fotomontagen, Gemälde, Aquarelle, cat. no. 85; Gotha 1993 (Ausstellungshalle Schloss Friedenstein), Hannah Höch, cat. no. 89 with colour illus.; Minneapolis/New York/Los Angeles 1997 (Walker Art Center/The Museum of Modern Art/Country Museum of Art), The photomontages of Hannah Höch, cat. no. 9 with illus.; Düsseldorf 1998 (Galerie Remmert und Barth), Hannah Höch. Mit Pinsel, Feder und Schere, cat. no. 87 with colour illus.; Madrid 2004 (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia), Hannah Höch, without cat. no., p. 262 f. with colour illus.; Mannheim 2016 (Kunsthalle), Hannah Höch. Revolutionärin der Kunst. Das Werk nach 1945, cat. no. 105 with colour illus. and cat. title