Dadaism: 12 Iconic Artworks From The Dada Art Movement

Dadaism was an avant-garde artistic and cultural movement prompted by the European societal climate after World War I. It was a rejection of modern capitalism, bourgeois culture, and wartime politics that aligned with other far-left radical groups. This was expressed through the use of non-traditional art materials, satire, and nonsensical content. Even the movement’s name, ‘Dada’, was meant to be a word with no meaning. Below are 12 iconic artworks that characterize this postwar art movement.

Marcel Duchamp was one of the most prolific artists of Dadaism, producing numerous infamous paintings, collages and sculptures. He is also associated with Cubism, Futurism, and early conceptual art. He has had a monumental influence on 20th-century modernist art, specifically sculpture. His work reached maturity after World War I when he began using art as a tool for cultural protest.

Fountain is one of the most iconic art pieces of the 20th century, representing a major shift in the function of art in society. While the original 1917 piece does not survive today, the Tate created a replica made of earthenware in 1964. It is one of the earliest examples of ‘lowbrow’ or ‘readymade’ sculptures, which are made from found objects. Duchamp submitted the sculpture to the Paris Salon, but it was rejected because it was not considered art.

2. Marcel Duchamp, L.H.O.O.Q. (1919)

L.H.O.O.Q. is another famous example of a ‘readymade’ sculpture by Marcel Duchamp. It was created from an inexpensive postcard of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (1503-06) onto which Duchamp then drew a waxed mustache and goatee. The piece features elements of satire, rejecting the aesthetic of ‘high art’. The title of the piece is also satirical, as L.H.O.O.Q. when said in French sounds like ‘Elle a chaud au cul’, translating to ‘she’s hot in the butt’ and connoting an underlying sexuality to the piece.

3. Kurt Schwitters, Construction For Noble Ladies (1919)

Kurt Schwitters was a German artist who experimented with several different mediums including painting, sculpture, graphic design, installation art, and poetry. His work was associated with Surrealism, Cubism, and Constructivism as well as Dadaism. He was also known for applying the term Merz to his work, a term he made up that was synonymous with Dada, as a form of cultural protest.

Construction for Noble Ladies is an example of Schwitters’ use of abstraction in collage and sculpture. This assemblage piece also exemplifies the ‘found object’ style of sculpture, as it is constructed of a variety of broken and disjointed materials: a funnel, a metal toy train, broken wheels, and other scrap objects. It also includes a horizontal portrait of a noble lady, from which the piece gets its title. The assembly of the work is rough, and the painting has a rugged finish to it, further adding to its diversion from preceding artistic expectations. In the end, the entire piece has an elegant asymmetry, showing that even scrap objects can create a masterpiece.

Raoul Hausmann was a prominent Austrian artist and a leader of the Dada movement in Berlin. Hausmann was also an expressionist artist. After becoming acquainted with the Dadaism movement, he met other artists including John Heartfield and George Grosz. During this time, he focused mostly on poetry and photographic collage, which would have a profound effect on the postwar European avant-garde. His poetry was known for being especially provocative and his artwork very satirical. He was also a lover of fellow Dadaist Hannah Höch.

The Art Critic is Hausmann’s ardent criticism of the superficiality of the art world. The piece is a photo collage made up of a series of magazine and newspaper photographs and includes some drawn elements. The work is considered ‘lowbrow’ as it uses materials and iconography seen in popular culture. It connotes that, much like the construction of a collage, art critics possess a cobbled-together knowledge of vacuous facts and do not truly understand the meaning of art.

5. Hannah Höch, Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany (1919-20)

Hannah Höch was a German artist and member of the Dadaism movement. She pioneered the technique of photomontage, or photo collage, using images from popular media. She was interested in feminism, gender, and androgyny in art, and especially in the dissolution of the ‘New Woman’ dichotomy. She also explored the political climate during the Weimar Republic in her work.

Cut with the Kitchen Knife represents the juxtaposition between Dadaism and mainstream culture during the time. Members of dominant political groups such as the Weimar government and the army are clustered in one part of the photo collage. In stark contrast, the other side of the piece features communists, artists, and other radicals. Höch also included a small map that displays the countries in Europe that allowed women to vote. The piece demonstrates the rebellion by the Dadaists and other radical groups during a time of strict political and cultural conformity.

The Mechanical Head is Raoul Hausmann’s most famous work. It was crafted from a hairdresser’s wig dummy, a ruler, a pocket watch, a wallet, pieces from a camera, and other found items. The piece is thought to be a commentary on how humanity interacts with objects and the surrounding world. The face is completely devoid of expression, unlike the expressive faces of European cultural masterpieces. Instead, its character is explained by the external objects attached to it. The sculpture thus questions all precedent depictions of intellectualism and depth, showing the subject only as it relates to the superficial, material world around it.

7. Johannes Theodor Baargeld, Typical Vertical Mess as Depiction of the Dada Baargeld (1920)

Typical Vertical Mess as Depiction of the Dada Baargeld by Johannes Theodor Baargeld, 1920, MoMA (audio discussion)

Johannes Theodor Baargeld was a pen name, of Alfred Emanuel Ferdinand Greunwald, whose surname was taken from the German word for cash. Typical Vertical Mess as Depiction of the Dada Baargeld (1920) is a collage and self-portrait. In this work, Baargeld took a photograph of himself and imposed it on a photograph of the Venus de Milo. The brim on the young man’s (Baargeld’s) cap leads the image to allude to World War I.

8. Jean Arp, Shirt Front and Fork (1922)

Jean Arp, also known as Hans Arp, was a German-French painter, sculptor, and poet. He was a founding member of the Dadaist movement. After moving to Zürich, he met fellow artists Hugo Ball and Sophie Taeuber, who would become Arp’s wife. The trio then collaborated to create a Dadaist manifesto. Arp’s work was known for exploring the unconscious, its elements of satire, and the abstraction of organic forms.

Shirt Front and Fork is part of a series of painted wooden relief sculptures that Arp crafted in the 1920s. The work has a monochrome graphic element to it, with soft, organic forms and a simplistic composition. The fork on the right is easily identifiable, while the form on the left represents the front of a shirt, but also resembles a large tooth or a human face. The piece represents Arp’s stylistic shift between periods. The abstract forms from his earlier work collide with his later use of object association to delve into the unconscious mind.

Francis Picabia was a French painter and poet who was associated with Impressionism, Cubism, Pointillism, and Dadaism. He also experimented with publishing and filmmaking, and an eclectic series of stylistic and media shifts can characterize his nearly 50-year career. His most famous works were paintings featuring color blocks, geometric shapes, and abstractions, although he was also known for unorthodox material collage.

Optophone I is an example of Picabia’s ‘machinist’ works, which were inspired by early 20th-century industrial equipment and comment on the acceleration of technology during the time. The piece simulates the effects of an optophone, a device that uses sonification to scan texts and images to help the blind identify letters on a page. The center of the painting holds a classical-style seated nude woman as if she has been seen through the use of an optophone. The piece thus questions how humanity encounters and interprets art.

10. Francis Picabia, Joyful Movement: Dances at the Spring [II] (1912)

Dances at the Spring [II], another work by Francis Picabia, reminds the viewer of early abstraction with its flat, angular forms that evoke the motion of dancing women. After its debut at the 1913 Association of American Painters and Sculptors exhibition in New York, the work faced skepticism from American audiences that were unfamiliar with such radical abstraction. This critical reception mirrored the response to the broader Dada movement’s challenge to conventional aesthetics. Despite the initial backlash, Picabia’s piece, with its distinctive title and innovative approach, remains a pivotal example of early Cubist and Dadaist experimentation.

Man Ray was an American photographer and visual artist who worked mainly in Paris. He was a significant member of Dadaism and Surrealism, producing numerous works that remain easily recognizable today. He was known for his abstract portraits of women and his use of shadows and negative light to create pieces with a dreamlike element to them. He also photographed many famous artists during his lifetime, providing pictorial insight into their lives.

Rayograph is one of a series of Ray’s photograms, which Tristan Tzara called rayographs after the artist. These pieces were made using photographic paper, on which Ray placed a series of objects and then exposed them to light. The paper would then darken where an object was not placed, creating the effect of a negative light shadow. These pieces exemplified the notion of Dada, as they often represented mundane or random objects that did not seem connected.  The products of this method were also often inconsistent, as they required multiple sessions of light exposure and were thus privy to external conditions.

12. Max Ernst, Ubu Imperator (1923)

Max Ernst was a German painter, poet, sculptor, and graphic artist, and an early member of the Dadaism and Surrealism movements. He was extremely experimental with his work, combining different mediums with an abstract, illusionistic technique. He also used a method called frottage, or ‘rubbing’, in which the artist places paper on an uneven surface and then rubs pencil on it to create a patterned outline of the surface.

Ubu Imperator represents Ernst’s stylistic shift between Dadaism and Surrealism, depicting a spinning anthropomorphic top with incongruent features. The subject portrays the father Ubu, a symbol of authority and greed seen in a series of plays by Alfred Jerry that elucidate the injustices of complacency under the bourgeois empirical society. The landscape is a characteristic Surrealist desert with a vast horizon, while the top features the parodying and anti-establishment notions of Dadaism.

Originally published: May 13, 2020. Last update: August 5, 2024 by Elizabeth Berry