Derived from the French verb coller, meaning “to glue,” collage refers to both the technique and the resulting work of art in which fragments of paper and other materials are arranged and glued or otherwise affixed to a supporting surface. The development of collage techniques in the 20th century is associated with the names of Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris. The term "collage" itself was first applied to the works of Dadaists and Surrealists. Later it was also used in relation to other arts: literature, music, cinema, etc.
The history of the Collage Art
The history of collage dates back to the second century BC in China far back then. Ancient artists glued pieces of different materials to paper in addition to images drawn in ink. In Europe, the first collage attempts date back to the 13th century. Pieces of gold leaf and precious stones were glued to icons, coats of arms of rulers and inner walls of Gothic temples.
The genius Pablo Picasso was one of the first who used this technique. In 1912, he created the famous painting Still Life with Chair Caning, an icon of Cubism. The work, painted in oil, is framed by a rope and pieces of gluing are attached to part of its surface.
The first wave of collage popularity in art had dried up by the end of the 1930s. But after 20 years, there was renewed interest in this technique in the cultural environment. In November 1962, the New Realist Exhibition was held in New York, which presented works by young artists in the new style of pop art. Many of the works were created in collage technique and caused a great deal of resonance during the show. Adopted by subsequent artists, collage became a dominant technique in the Dada, Surrealist, Pop Art, and Neo-Dada movements, each using the technique to explore different subject matters. Because collage often incorporates mass-produced images, the practice is often inseparable from its historical and political context, making it a mode of powerful social commentary. Contemporary artists continue to explore the richness of collage in their efforts to question assumptions, biases, and pressing political crises.
Modern tendencies of the Collage Art
Collages can be created from a range of materials, though most are made of paper or wood and often feature cut-and-pasted photographs, painted forms, or even 3-dimensional objects. As more and more modern artists began exploring the practice throughout the 20th century, these mediums became more varied and increasingly experimental.
Vintage
The use of vintage images, advertising and materials is perhaps the most significant trend in collage today. Many collage artists draw inspiration from vintage art because of its unique style and beauty.
Mixed technique
Mixed technique is simply the use of a variety of visual media such as pencil drawings, oil paints, pastels, coal and markers. Advertising and slogans. Not surprisingly, slogans, branding and advertising play a defining role in many of the collages presented here. Consumer culture has been a major force since its introduction to collage in the late 1940s.
Retro
Retro iconography and images have experienced a revival in collage because their style is so different from contemporary culture and art.
Urban style
"The 'Collage Found' draws heavily on the art of city walls. It uses materials such as broken posters, advertisements, paints, felt-tip pens and signs. This style is growing in popularity, partly thanks to artists such as Nick Riggio, who creates urban collage paintings.
Collage Artists
Robert Rauschenberg
The most famous series of collages "Combinations", established between 1954 and 1962. Rauschenberg extended the traditional framework of the collage to include urban rubbish in his compositions: bottles, watches, radios, clothes, wire, newspapers.
Richard Hamilton
The collage "What exactly makes our homes so special, so attractive?", which has an iconic status today, was created in 1956 for the catalogue of the London exhibition and is considered to be the first work in the pop art style. It consists of photographs taken mainly from American magazines and advertising.
Romare Bearden
Birden has really mastered collage techniques because the multi-level, fragmented form allowed him to freely combine ideas, forms and cultural features in a modern and accessible form. "The Calabash (1970) is perhaps his most famous collage.
Hannah Höch
Höch’s most famous work, effortlessly titled ‘Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany’, shows her ideals and techniques in synthesis. A collage of newspaper clippings, the work challenges the racist and sexist codes upholding Weimar Germany.
Kurt Schwitters
Unlike the other Dada artists, Schwitters was not based in Berlin, but in Hanover, where he worked until the Nazis exiled him from Germany, when he came to live in The Lake District in England. Throughout his montages, collages and assemblages, Schwitters developed the concept of Merz – ‘the combination, for artistic purposes of all conceivable materials’ – in which he argued that everyday found objects including wood, plasterboard, wheels, cotton were equal in expression to paint itself.
John Stezaker
British artist John Stezaker studied at the Slade School of Art in 1973, and went on to produce work which challenged the predominance of Pop art. Stezaker’s collages are irreverent; his use of glamorous 1950s portraits, of dapper suited men and Hollywood stars, mashed together with postcards of landscapes and with other faces, has the effect of the uncanny. In 2012, Stezaker won the Deutsche Börse photography prize to a mixed reception, as a few critics questioned whether a conceptual artist – who deals with the destruction of photographs – could win a prestigious photography award, proving that collage as an art form continues to be nothing if not controversial.
Text by Lisa Lukianova @llukianova_