The McMaster Museum of Art has just acquired a major work — a 1931 self-portrait by German artist Hannah Hoch (1889 – 1978). It the first work by the artist to enter the collection; a significant addition to Museum’s considerable Expressionist and Weimar period holdings, and possibly the only Höch painting in a Canadian public collection.

“We are thrilled,” says Museum Director Carol Podedworny. “For a collection, built on important early 20^th century German art, this Hannah Höch is long overdue.”

Höch studied design and graphic art in Berlin prior to WWI and participated in the two key Berlin Dada exhibitions in 1919 and 1920, but was not wholly accepted, as she noted in a 1959 interview: “It was not easy for a woman to make it as a modern artist in Germany [and] most of the male colleagues considered us for a long time as charming, gifted amateurs.” Höch is now recognized as having developed a distinct visual language that addressed social attitudes of the modern age and women as subject. Best known for her photomontage work, Höch painted throughout her career.

Over the past year, the McMaster Museum of Art has added more than a hundred new works of art to its internationally recognized collection of approximately 7,000 objects.