John Heartfield and the Agitated Image

“Impeccably researched and grippingly told, Andrés Mario Zervigón’s John Heartfield and the Agitated Image presents a fundamentally new picture of the German photomontage pioneer: as an artist who took his cues from Hollywood starlets just as much as from Marxist theoreticians, and who crafted his images to function as both physical punch and intellectual appeal. Tracing Heartfield’s passage into and beyond Dada with singular care, Zervigón reveals the range of projects and decisions by which he managed to reinvent photography—indeed art itself—during a period of unparalleled historical turbulence."

“John Heartfield and the Agitated Image offers a compelling reconstruction, based on new archival research, of the slow but steady trajectory of John Heartfield, George Grosz, and Wieland Herzfelde toward Dada, photomontage, and critical publishing in the Weimar Republic. With Heartfield as the book’s center, Andrés Mario Zervigón emphasizes the formative role of postcards, book cover designs, animation, and film stills as strategies in the creation of a radical political image sphere. At stake for Heartfield was nothing less than the reinvention of photographic truth, and in that endeavor he remains a key figure in the history of photography and political aesthetics.”

“This lively and original book is a cogently formulated work that will make a welcome addition to the rapidly growing literature on John Heartfield. Andrés Mario Zervigón provides a narrative arc for the development of Heartfield’s career as a photomonteur, adding much to the story by looking at his work from 1916–19 and 1921–29. Useful and instructive as well as thought-provoking, John Heartfield and the Agitated Image is an enjoyable read.”