Artist Birthday: Christian Schad

Christian Schad was of the generation of artists whose reaction against World War I engendered the Dada movement in art. Dada introduced the reinterpretation of what constituted fine art based on a rejection of the “rational” which Dada artists believed were the cause of the war.

Artist Birthday for 21 August: Christian Schad (1894–1982, Germany)

Christian Schad was a leading Dada artist. Like Man Ray, he produced novel photographs composed of elements laid on light-sensitive paper and developed in sunlight.

Christian Schad, Schadograph, 1918. Gelatin silver print of collage elements on paper, 5.9 x 8.3 cm The Museum of Modern Art, New York. © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. (MOMA-P2481sdars)

In 1916, Christian Schad moved to Geneva to join the Dada group there. It was in Geneva where the artist became interested in abstract photography. Using his collage method as a jumping off point, Schad covered the surfaces of light-sensitive paper with various objects and then left them to develop by his windowsill. He preferred worn materials, such as scraps of paper and bits of fabric, often searching for these things on the streets and in garbage cans. Schad frequently extended his assault on artistic tradition by cutting a jagged border around the Schadographs, "to free them," as he explained, "from the convention of the square." When the manifesto writer of the Dada movement, Tristan Tzara (1896–1963, Romanian-German), saw Schad's prints, he named them Schadographs. They were Schad's most influential contribution to Dada, and, perhaps, an influence on Man Ray's (1890–1976) "Rayographs."

World War I (1914–1918) was the costliest war in human history in terms of destruction and loss of life (over two million). The first art movement to address the horror of the war and the moral questions it posed was Dada. If modern art up to World War I had questioned the traditions of art, Dada questioned the very concept of art itself. Dada mocked the idea of so-called rational thought and the underpinnings of modern society because they had led to the destruction of the war. They dismissed the idea of art as a valued physical object, in favor of an irrational art of ideas (writing) and actions (performance).

Dada evolved first in Switzerland (1916) when the war broke out, and in Berlin in 1918. Avant-garde artists disgusted by the war gathered at Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich, forming the first core of Dada. In the Swiss venue, Dada consisted mostly of performances of poetry and writings in made-up languages.

When the Dada movement spread to Germany, it became more of a vehicle for visual arts, particularly those flavored by a propagandistic or political agenda. While Cubists had first incorporated collage elements in their paintings and drawings, Dada artists created collage and photomontage works as stand-alone art. Dada artists felt that the incorporation of photographs or bits of photographs opened up a wide expanse of expressive critical possibilities.

Born in Miesbach, Christian Schad was interested in music and art as a young person. In 1912, he chose painting and studied at the Academy of Art in Munich. He showed his first paintings at the Munich Secession in 1915. At the time, his work was influenced by Cubism, Futurism, and Expressionism.

Schad moved to Zurich in 1915 to avoid military service and became acquainted with Dada. Of particular impact on his body of work was the work of French artists Jean Arp (1887–1966). Arp advocated art that was unconstrained by traditional conventions of composition, subject, and form. Of major influence on Schad's photographs were Arp's low-relief collages of flat found objects. Schad began making small collages of newspaper clippings and odd scraps of paper.