Born in Vienna, Raoul Hausmann was the son of a portrait and history painter. When he was four, the family moved to Berlin. After receiving academic training in painting and sculpture, Hausmann in 1917 began to paint in an Expressionist style, and he also began to publish polemical art criticism. In 1915 he met the artist Hannah Höch, with whom he lived until 1922. From 1918 to 1920, Hausmann and Höch were key members of the Berlin Dada group, contributing decisively to the development of Dada photomontage. In 1927 Hausmann began to make his own photographs, which were published in avant-garde magazines such as a bis z. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Hausmann left Germany, and in subsequent years lived in Ibiza, Paris, Zurich, Prague, and finally Limoges. After World War II, he resumed active work in painting, photography, and photomontage, and in 1967 received his first retrospective at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm.

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