Slide presentation about Collage as artistic technique, including the history of collage, important artists such as Picasso, Braque and artists from the Dada movement, and later artists involved in Pop-Art. The slides also include contemporary artists working with Collage.

1. Introduction to Illustration
Illustration techniques 1: Collage
All artwork is copyright of the artist. Where
possible all artists have been named and
all artwork dated. This document should be
used for educational purposes only.
Bill Zindel
Explaining the Atom
2010

2. MCD5190 Illustration | Illustration technique 1 | Collage
History of Collage as artistic technique
Collage as technique has a long history in modern art. It first became popular in
the experimental and avant-garde movements of the early 1900s. Collage was
popular for mixing up textures, type and pictures, different materials, colours
and shapes. The technique was used to break up the barrier between art and
ordinary life by integrating elements of both.
Among the first artists to work with collage were Pablo Picasso and Georges
Braque, shortly after the turn of the century.

3. Still life with chair caning,
Pablo Picasso,
1912

4. Georges Braque
Glass Carafe and Newspapers
1914
In the 1920s, artists involved with an art movement
called Dada made use of collage for its conceptual
connotations of fragmentation, recombination and
the breaking up of order and organisation.
Dada artists chose abstract collage over more
identifiable subject matter because it suited their
wish to deconstruct a bourgeouis society they felt
responsible for the upheaval of the war.
Here are some examples from the period, from Dada
artists and others influenced by the movement

5. The Skat players,
Otto Dix, 1920
Artists like Otto Dix were
not affiliated with Dada but
used similar methods and
techniques, such as collage.
This picture is a comment
on Germany’s conservative
society showing war veterans
clinging on to pastimes such
as traditional card games
in spite of their horrific war
injuries.

6. Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife
through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly
Cultural Epoch in Germany,
Hannah Höch, 1919
Dada artists were explicit
in their criticism, as this
picture and its title show. The
use of collage has the dual
effect of creating a sense of
fragmentation and chaos, of
overturning old rules, while
also integrating elements of
contemporary life.

7. Merzpicture thirty-one
Kurt Schwitters
1920
Under National Socialism much
of Expressionist and Dada art was
deemed “degenerate art” and artists
had to flee the country, forbidden
to exhibit and sell their artwork and
expropriated.
Avant-Garde art had been thriving in
Europe, but the coming war put an
end to the activity of many.

8. Raoul Hausmann
Dada Cino
1920

9. The Holy Night by Antoni Allegri,
known as Correggio
Kurt Schwitters
1947
Some artists such as Kurt Schwitters
took up the technique of collage
after the war, but the times had
changed. New art movements
emerged, and artists took up collage
as an art form to express new
meanings.

10. Odalisk,
Robert Rauschenberg,
1955-58
The pop art movement, for instance, was also interested
in art and its relationship to lived experience, but in a
much less critical way.
This new generation of artists was focused on popular
culture and more likely to be based in the USA rather
than in Europe, although many influential artists were in
fact migrants who had fled the war.

11. Monogram,
Robert Rauschenberg,
1955-59

12. Retroactive II
Robert Rauschenberg
1964
What remained important in
these pop-art collages was the
use of the technique to refer to
contemporary life, rather than to
make more general statements.
Whether critical or not, collage
continued to be an artistic
comment on society at the time,
for instance in this artwork by
Robert Rauschenberg.

13. Just What Is It That Makes
Today’s Homes So Different,
So Appealing
Richard Hamilton
1956

14. Bathtub No. 3,
Tom Wesselmann,
1963

15. Afrodizzia, Second Version,
Chris Ofili,
1996
Paper collage, oil paint, glitter, polyester
resin, map pins and elephant dung on
linen
Over the years artists experimented
with many different styles as well as
materials, blurring the boundaries
between collage and sculpture.
Chris Ofili for instance creates three-dimensional
canvasses which include
mounted objects, such as lumps of
dried elephant dung.

16. Hellter Fucking Skelter
Tracey Emin
2002
Tracy Emin, a
contemporary of Ofili,
uses techniques such
as quilting to combine
textures, colours, patterns
and text in her artwork.

17. Sex Pistols,
God Save The Queen
single cover
1977
As a vehicle for
social criticism
collage has found
its way into
popular culture,
for instance
in this record
cover, including
allusions to
ransom notes.

18. Contemporary collage
Collage has developed into a popular technique used for all sorts of purposes,
from advertising to book illustration. With the rise of digital image processing
digital collage has made it even easier for artists to scale, cut, and recombine
images with stunning results.
In the following slides we will review some recent artworks and discuss the
technique used by the artists, as well as the kinds of composition and visual
effects created in their artwork.
Looking at these images, ask yourself to which period of time the different
components refer to. Other interesting things to look for is the artist’s use of
scale, colour versus black and white imagery, overlaying different elements,
repetition and the use of textures and type.

19. Hugo Barros
Surrealist collages

20. Hugo Barros
Surrealist collages

21. Hugo Barros
Surrealist collages

22. Joseba Elorza Aka
Mira Ruido
200 dias en sing-sing
2008

23. Joseba Elorza Aka
Mira Ruido
Lost
2009

24. Joseba Elorza Aka
Mira Ruido
matriarcado
2008

25. Joseba Elorza Aka
Mira Ruido
et les niches fiscales
2009

26. Julien Pacaud
High Land
2014

27. Julien Pacaud
Perpendicular Dreams
part 2 episode14
2014

28. Andy Burgess
Urban Collages

29. Andy Burgess
Urban Collages

30. Bill Zindel
Explaining the Atom
2010

31. Bill Zindel
Explaining the Atom
2010

32. PNTS
Grenoble
2009

33. Mario Wagner
Portal
2013

34. Mario Wagner
Sighting
2013

35. Mario Wagner
Absolut Vodka ad
2011

36. Dan Hillier
untitled
2014

37. Dan Hillier
untitled
2014

38. Dan Hillier
untitled
2014

39. Technique
World Association of Zoos & Aquariums 77th Anniversary
Jonathan Woodward Studio

48. jonathanwoodwardstudio.com