Lee Miller was a successful model and photographer. In 1944 she became a correspondent with the US Army, taking photos that would be published in major magazines like Vogue and Life. She followed US troops overseas on 'D' Day and was one of few women photo-journalist to cover the war in Europe. She was present when the allies stormed Hitler's apartment and it is in his bathtub that she decided to bathe!
Lee Miller.Miller Bathing in Hitler's Bath.
1945. http://blindflaneur.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/lee_miller_hitler_tub_1945.jpg
Worksheet #7 Due
Historic Context
1906 - 1920
Women gain the right to vote in Finland, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and the United States
1914 - 1918
World War
I
Over 37 milion deaths
1919
Treaty of Versailles forces Germany, Austria and Hungary to accept responsibility for causing WWI and pay heavy reparations to certain Allied Nations
1919 - 1933
German Weimar Republic
1917 - 1920
Russian Revolution
1919 - 1921
Irish War of Independence
1922
Formation
of the Soviet Union
Fascists under
Benito Mussolini seize power in Italy
1924
Immigration Act places restricts Eastern and Southern European nationalities, bans East Asians, Indians and Africans, and put regulates Latin Americans from immigrating to U.S. Coincides with growth of KKK.
Kathe Kollwitz. Death Seizing
a Woman. 1934.
http://www.fsu.edu/~arh/STUDY/WWC/12/death.jpg
Recurring
themes in Kollwitz's work:
Kathe Kollwitz. The Downtrodden.
1900.
Sterling,
Susan Fisher. Women Artists: The National Museum of Women in the Arts.
New York: Abbeville Press Publishers, 1995.
Misery
of impoverished working classes
Omnipresence
of death
Sympathy
with armed revolt to improve inhumane conditions
Kaiser Wilhelm II http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wilhelm_II._1905.jpeg
"I
beg you, gentlemen, a medal for a woman, that would really be going
too far... Orders and medals of honor belong on the breasts of worthy
men!" - Kaiser Wilhelm II, 1898
Dadaism 1916
- 1923
(Some of the) Berlin Dadaists in 1921 http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Dada.aspx
Dada = a nonsensical term used to define an international artistic and literary movement. Born of the widespread disillusionment engendered by World War I, it attacked conventional standards of aesthetics and behavior and stressed absurdity and the role of the unpredictable in artistic creation.
"While
the thunder of guns rolled in the distance, we sang, painted, glued
and composed for all our worth. We are seeking an art that would heal
mankind from the madness of the age."- Jean Arp
Marcel Duchamp. Fountain. 1917.
Stokstad,
Marilyn. Art History. Revised Second ed. Vol. 2. New York: Prentice
Hall Inc., and Harry N. Abrams Inc., 2005.
readymade = an industrially produced object that becomes a work of art through the choice or assistance of the artist.
Hannah Hoch. The Beautiful Girl. 1920. http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Museum/2042/fotos/hoch.jpg
"It
was not very easy for a woman to impose herself as a modern artist
in Germany...Most of our male colleagues continued for a long time
to look upon us as charming and gifted amateurs, denying us implicitly
any real professional status." - Hannah Höch
"They
all wanted this 'new woman' and her groundbreaking will to freedom.
But they more or less brutally rejected the notion that they, too,
had to adopt new attitudes." - Hannah Höch
Hans Richter described Höch's contribution to the Dada movement as the "sandwiches, beer and coffee she managed somehow to conjure up despite the shortage of money." Raoul Hausmann even suggested that the best thing Höch could do for Dada was to support him financially. This was during the time that Hausmann was living with both Höch and his wife, whom he refused to divorce in order to commit himself to his relationship with Höch (Wikipedia).
Hannah Hoch. Cut with a Kitchen
Knife Dada through the last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany.
1919 - 1920.
Girls,
Guerrilla. The Guerilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western
Art. New York: Penguin Books, 1998.
Hannah Hoch. Cut with a
Kitchen Knife Dada through the last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch of
Germany. 1919-20.
Rosenblum, Naomi. A World History of
Photography. Abbeville Press, New York. 1989.
Photomontage
= a photographic collage that is photographed so that the final image
is converted back into a photographic print
Hannah Hoch organizes the photomontage into four quadrants:
Upper right = Anti Dada world
Lower right = The Great Dada World
Upper left = "Dada" springs from Einstein's head
Lower left = figure demands that the masses join Dada
Hannah and Til Brugman 1947
Girls,
Guerrilla. The Guerilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western
Art. New York: Penguin Books, 1998.
