Hannah Höch

Hannah Höch was a pioneering German artist who helped invent the art of photomontage—cutting and rearranging images from mass media to create new, provocative meanings. She was a central figure in Berlin’s Dada movement, using her work to critique the patriarchy, the absurdities of war, and the rigid expectations placed on women.

Though often marginalized by her male peers, Höch carved out a fiercely independent voice. Her bold and layered compositions confronted themes of gender, politics, and identity with wit and power. She took scissors to the status quo—literally—and reshaped the art world from the scraps.

Her 1919 masterpiece, Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada through the Beer-Belly of the Weimar Republic, slices through gender roles and political hypocrisy using the tools of domesticity. She tackled topics like the ‘New Woman,’ queer love, colonialism, and the role of women in both avant-garde circles and society at large.

Banned by the Nazis and underestimated by her contemporaries, Höch nevertheless kept creating in secret, retreating to the edges while staying defiantly herself. Today, she’s recognized as a foundational voice in feminist and avant-garde art history—a legacy collaged together from fragments, but more whole than ever.