A.I.Z. (Workers' Illustrated Magazine)

<p>In 1929, following ten years of activity in photomontage and publishing, John Heartfield began working for the left-wing periodical <em>Workers’ Illustrated Magazine</em> (<em>Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung</em> [<em>AIZ</em>]). The weekly magazine, founded to popularize news and images from a working-class viewpoint, served from the first as a major organ of opposition to the rising National Socialist Party. When Hitler took power in early 1933, Heartfield and the AIZ editorial office fled to Prague; many of Heartfield’s best-known covers for the magazine were made in the Czech capital. Among them is this iconic picture of a monumental fist that contains a multitude of arms raised in solidarity. The composition, exceptional for Heartfield in that it shows a picture of inspiration rather than acerbic critique, was undoubtedly influenced by the work of Soviet photomontage artist Gustav Klutsis, particularly a 1932 election poster for which Klutsis repeated the image of his own raised palm numerous times to evoke a crowd acting as one. In 2009 the Art Institute acquired a premier collection of Central and Eastern European photography in print that includes 163 issues of <em>AIZ</em>—one of the largest such holdings in the United States—and many other books, periodicals, and posters by both Heartfield and Klutsis.</p>