Long before the buzz around AI, photographs were already deceiving us. But did you know that the art of manipulating images dates back to the 19th century? It’s true—and it’s far more fascinating than you might think. While today’s AI-generated images, like Pope Francis in a puffer coat or Donald Trump’s fake mugshot, grab headlines, the practice of altering photos has deep roots. An upcoming exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, titled Fake!, reveals that visual trickery has been around since the mid-1800s, long before Photoshop or digital tools.
Curator Hans Rooseboom points out that people have always tinkered with photography, whether in the darkroom, with scissors and glue, or now with AI. Fake! showcases 52 images from 1860 to 1940, all created through collage or montage. These early manipulations produced fantastical scenes—like a man wheeling his own giant head in a wheelbarrow or a horse dragging an enormous ear of corn. But here’s where it gets controversial: Were these early photographers trying to deceive, or were they simply having fun? Rooseboom argues that photography has never been purely realistic, especially in the 19th century when people were more accustomed to imaginative paintings and drawings.
Most of these early fakes were created for entertainment, though some had political or advertising purposes. Take John Heartfield, a German artist who used photomontage to satirize Hitler and the Nazi regime in the 1930s. His work, like an image of Joseph Goebbels as Hitler’s barber, remains a powerful example of how manipulated images can critique power. And this is the part most people miss: Photojournalism, with its emphasis on truth, didn’t truly take off until the interwar period. Before that, people didn’t expect photographs to be entirely factual.
Rooseboom notes that while some fakes are obvious—like a theatrical decapitation—others are harder to spot. For instance, a postcard from an aviation show in LA shows planes in the sky and a tightly packed crowd, a scene that could only have been created through montage. But were people back then fooled, or did they see through the trick? With fewer photographs in circulation, it’s possible they were less skeptical than we are today.
Many of these early images were created by anonymous artists and reproduced as postcards. The techniques, like combining negatives in a darkroom, were even shared in magazines as DIY recipes. Fast forward to today, artists like those behind the Hey Reilly Instagram account use AI to satirize celebrity culture, not to deceive but to comment on society’s obsessions. Here’s the real question: Are we focusing too much on the fakes themselves and not enough on the platforms and motivations behind them?
As Fake! opens at the Rijksmuseum on February 6, 2026, it challenges us to rethink our relationship with images. What do you think? Are manipulated photos a harmless form of entertainment, or do they erode our trust in visual media? Let us know in the comments—this debate is far from over.
