Found, Cut, and Rearranged: The Art of John Stezaker

For almost four decades, the artist John Stezaker (British, b. 1949) has steadfastly been appropriating “found” press photographs, film stills, imagery from books, old postcards, and the like, to create a strikingly new way of seeing photography. One can tell that the artist is profoundly infatuated with images, whether he is subtracting from them (by cutting parts of them out) or adding them to another source. A winner of the prestigious Deutsche Börse Photography Prize in 2012, Stezaker has built his highly original collages upon reference points of others before him — from the Surrealists to Modernists like Warhol, to contemporary Postmodern Appropriation artists such as Goldstein, Prince, Longo, Kruger, and Levine. With an open nod to these connected threads, Stezaker’s work has managed to find a comfortable new niche in the art world, a place where forty years of hard and unwavering work has taken him. (For more on Stezaker's work, see this thoughtful analysis by Rick Poynor published here in 2012.)



Mask XIII
The Tate Museum
2006
Collage



Marriage I
The Saatchi Gallery
2006
Collage
23.5 x 28.5 cm



Untitled XXVI
The Saatchi Gallery
2007
Collage
29.5 x 18.6 cm



Untitled XXII
The Saatchi Gallery
2007
Collage
25.4 x 20 cm



Mask C
The Saatchi Gallery
2008
Collage
26 x 20.4 cm


Mask CII
The Saatchi Gallery
2011
Collage
22.8 x 19 cm



He (Film Portrait Collage) III
The Saatchi Gallery 2008
Collage
26.6 x 20.4 cm



He (Film Portrait Collage) II
The Saatchi Gallery
2008
Collage
25 x 19.3 cm



Mask XXIX
The Saatchi Gallery
2006
Collage
23.5 x 19 cm



Old Mask VIII
The Saatchi Gallery
2006
Collage
24.5 x 19.5 cm



Old Mask VII
The Saatchi Gallery
2006
Collage
24.5 x 19.5 cm



Old Mask VI
The Saatchi Gallery
2006
Collage
24.5 x 19.5 cm



Old Mask V
The Saatchi Gallery
2006
Collage
24.5 x 19.5 cm



Old Mask IV
The Saatchi Gallery
2006
Collage
24.5 x 19.5 cm



Old Mask III
The Saatchi Gallery
2006
Collage
24.5 x 19.5 cm



Old Mask II
2006
Collage
24.5 x 19.5 cm



Old Mask I
The Saatchi Gallery
2006
Collage
24.5 x 19.5 cm



Blind I
The Saatchi Gallery
2006
Collage
23.2 x 18.7 cm



Marriage (Film Portrait Collage) XLV
The Saatchi Gallery
2007
collage
25.5 x 20.5 cm



Visitation
The Saatchi Gallery
2006
Collage
44 x 61 cm