{ Blast from the Past } ~ Lest We Forget

Illustration for Legion Magazine done in 2005 commemorating the Anniversary of the War.  

This method was made famous by the great John Heartfield who revolutionized Graphic Arts and Visual Communication as we know it by creating the artform we call 'photomontage'.  Of course he used scissors, photos, sandpaper and glue.  We get to use digital software.

Heartfield was a brave and courageous artist and it's somewhat fitting that this style was employed: John Heartfield was born Helmut Herzfelde and protested his nation's involvement in the First World War by anglicizing his name.  He had the great misfortune of commenting on the most horrific events in the early part of the 20th Century: the carnage and senseless slaughter that was the First World War; the collapse of Germany under the Versailles Treaty and the resultant rise of the Nazis.  In image after image he mocked and ridiculed Hitler and the Nazis with a power and realism that greatly annoyed the regime.  He rose to Number 5 on the Gestapo's most wanted list at one point.  He fled to Britain but found his anglicized name carried no truck with the Brits: they threw him into a concentration camp where his health deteriorated.  At war's end, he opted to return to the Soviet-controlled, East Germany where his brother was located.  East Germany proved less hospitable than he imagined.  The Academy refused him entry and he was essentially forbidden to create.  He lived out his days unable to work.   Just before his death, a retrospective was arranged in Britain, but he did not live to see the opening.