I looked at the work of the artists suggested in the coursework and decided to focus on Julie Cockburn (b. 1966), Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005) and John Heartfield (1891-1968). I selected these artists because I like their work, but also because they cover different time periods and I thought it would be interesting to see how this might affect their work.
The three artists work mainly with existing images although John Heartfield sometimes took photos for the purpose of a collage (https://www.grapheine.com/histoire-du-graphisme/john-heartfield-le-photocollage-comme-arme-politique). Julie Cockburn likes to give a second life to images she finds. She works a lot with portraits: Working with old photographs is similar to engaging in a dialogue. I am not working on a blank canvas. Rather, I am entering into a pre-existing conversation that took place between the photographer and sitter. She prefers portraits of strangers that represent everyman / woman (https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/whats-on/julie-cockburn-painting-photograph).
Both Eduardo Paolozzi and John Heartfield used images from newspapers and magazines. John Heartfield often used photos of famous people while Eduardo Paolozzi selected images from popular culture. The latter was particularly interested in consumerism and advertising in the post war period (https://www.boijmans.nl/en/exhibitions/eduardo-paolozzi-one-big-collage).
There is a similarity in the way these artists give a second life to images that were intended for a different purpose.
The three artists use different techniques to create their collages. Julie Cockburn often uses colourful embroidery to adorn the vintage photographs. She sometimes cover the entire faces with embroidery. Other times, she adorns the faces with stitches or creates delicate geometric structures around the heads.
Eduardo Paolozzi created complex collages where he assembled elements from different photos. He played a lot with scales as well as colours. It sometimes feels as if the whole juxtaposition of images happened by chance and yet, every part of the composition seems to be in the right place.
John Heartfield often combined a few pictures to create a different image with a different meaning. He also used text as part of his compositions.
The techniques and the materials used have an impact on the outcome and they are carefully chosen depending on the purpose of the collages.
Julie Cockburn’s creations are quite delicate due to the intricate pieces of embroidery. The final pieces are beautiful to look at and have a dream-like quality (https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/nov/28/embroidered-vintage-portrait-photography-julie-cockburn).
Eduardo Paolozzi’s pieces are vibrant with so much happening on a single composition. According to an article in the Independent, his purpose was to make fun of a post-war society who was obsessed with consumerism while living through difficult times with the cold war and the Vietnam war (https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/eduardo-paolozzi-living-in-a-materialist-world-8784364.html). His rich compositions reflect this exuberance.
John Heartfield’s collages are more serious and are often in black and white with sometimes an extra colour. The aim of his work was to denounce dangers such as the nazi regime and to reach as many people as possible with his message (https://rokantyfaszystowski.org/en/john-heartfield/). His images were meant to show the viewer how dangerous and frightening the political situation was. Text is used to emphasise the message he wanted to convey.
In the case of John Heartfield and Eduardo Paolozzi, the artwork will be perceived differently today. They both give us some insight in the time they lived in. However, their message is still relevant. John Heartfield’s work reminds us of the dangers of authoritarianism and corruption. Eduardo Paolozzi’s collages about consumerism is still valid in the society we live in.
I particularly enjoy looking at the work of Julie Cockburn. I like the idea of mixing media and the subtlety of the transformation of the original photos. In the artwork called “The conundrum” (https://www.designboom.com/art/julie-cockburn-vintage-photos-embroidery-03-22-2017/) where she adds circles over the portrait of a lady, the piece is so colourful and yet there is a lot of harmony between the colours. I also like how Eduardo Paolozzi uses images of people and objects on a different scale, particularly in that image: https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2013/08/25/21/Paolozzi-tate.jpg?quality=75&width=990&height=614&fit=bounds&format=pjpg&crop=16%3A9%2Coffset-y0.5&auto=webp
When I read Simon Morley’s essay “Writing on the wall: word and images in modern art”, I wondered how photography and the mechanisation of printing might have inspired collage artists. Not only it meant that more images were available to play with, but also, that, in a sense, collages of images and texts started appearing everywhere. The rise of advertising meant that people were soon surrounded by images and text in the street or in magazine pages as explained in the essay: The traditional book [El Lisitzky] declared “had been torn into separate pages, enlarged a hundredfold, coloured for greater intensity and brought into the street as a poster.
The essay also mentions how the consequences of these technological transformations would democratize art. This meant that inspiration could be found everywhere: For a generation of artists who felt that traditional artistic subject matter no longer had any contemporary relevance, the factory, railway depot, and the banal, commonplace and utilitarian architecture of the commercial industrial zones became an inspiration.
Other Sources
https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/name/eduardo-paolozzi-ra
https://www.goldmarkart.com/blogs/discover/eduardo-paolozzi-bunk
Catherine Roux Degree in Illustration 