Pholage is an artistic technique and method of graphic reproduction invented by Manuel Bennett in 1959.

An extension of collage

Collage

A collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....

, instead of consisting of mounting numerous pieces of colored paper or other material to make one original, pholage consists of taking positive or negative

Negative (photography)

In photography, a negative may refer to three different things, although they are all related.-A negative:Film for 35 mm cameras comes in long narrow strips of chemical-coated plastic or cellulose acetate. As each image is captured by the camera onto the film strip, the film strip advances so that...

 photographic film images, cutting out sections called "masks", and reassembling them to create a varied reproduction of the original. Additional drawings can be added to the color-separated original to further manipulate the original.

While collage yields a single piece of art, pholage can be reproduced by exposing photosensitive paper through the mask, or any other reproductive technique.