John Stezaker is a contemporary British Conceptual artist best known for his collages of found images taken from postcards, film stills, and commercial photographs. Stezaker’s work resembles early-Surrealist and Dada collages made by artists like Kurt Schwitters, Hannah Höch, and Man Ray. In the collage series Marriage (2006) juxtaposed portraits of classic film stars create newly formed
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ed characters—forcing the viewer to shift their frame of reference. “My ideal is to do very little to the images, maybe just one cut: the smallest change or the most minimal mutilation,” he stated of his work. “What I do is destructive, but also an act of deliberate passivity.” Born in 1949 in Worcester, United Kingdom, Stezaker attended the Slade School of Art in London and graduated in the 1973. He was a major influence on YBA artists like Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst when they first emerged in the late 1980s. His works have been featured at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Modern in London, and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, among others. The artist lives and works in London, United Kingdom.
