John Heartfield | |
|---|---|
.jpg) John Heartfield in 1959 | |
| Born | Helmut Herzfeld (1891-06-19)19 June 1891 Berlin-Schmargendorf, Berlin,German Empire |
| Died | 26 April 1968(1968-04-26) (aged 76) |
| Nationality | German,East German |
| Education | Royal Bavarian Arts and Crafts School |
| Known for | Photomontage |
| Family | Wieland Herzfelde |
John Heartfield (bornHelmut Herzfeld; 19 June 1891 – 26 April 1968) was a German visual artist who pioneered the use of art as a political weapon. Some of his most famousphotomontages were anti-Nazi andanti-fascist statements. Heartfield also created book jackets for book authors, such asUpton Sinclair, as well as stage sets for contemporary playwrights, such asBertolt Brecht andErwin Piscator.
John Heartfield was born Helmut Herzfeld on 19 June 1891 inBerlin-Schmargendorf, Berlin under theGerman Empire. His parents were Franz Herzfeld, a socialist writer, and Alice (née Stolzenburg), a textile worker and political activist.[1]
In 1899, Helmut, his brotherWieland, and their sisters Lotte and Hertha were abandoned in the woods by their parents after Franz Herzfeld was accused of blasphemy.[clarification needed] His family[clarification needed] had to flee toSwitzerland and later they were deported toAustria. When their parents disappeared in 1899,[clarification needed] Heartfield and his siblings were left abandoned in a mountain hut. The four children went to live with an uncle, Ignaz, in the small Austrian town ofAigen.[2]
In 1908, he studied art inMunich at theKönigliche Kunstgewerbeschule München (Royal Bavarian Arts and Crafts School). Two commercial designers,Albert Weisgerber andLudwig Hohlwein, were early influences.
While living in Berlin, he began styling himself "John Heartfield", ananglicisation of his German name, to protest againstanti-British fervour sweeping Germany during theFirst World War, when Berlin crowds often shouted "Gott strafe England!" ("May God punish England!") in the streets.[3]
During the same year, Heartfield, his brother Wieland andGeorge Grosz launched the Malik publishing house in Berlin. In 1916, he and George Grosz experimented with pasting pictures together, a form of art later namedphotomontage, and which would become a central characteristic of their work.
In 1917, Heartfield became a member ofBerlin Club Dada.[3] Heartfield would later become active in theDada movement, helping to organise theErste Internationale Dada-Messe (First International Dada Fair) in Berlin in 1920.Dadaists were provocateurs who disrupted public art gatherings and ridiculed the participants. They labeled traditional art trivial and bourgeois.
In January 1918, Heartfield joined the newly founded German Communist Party (KPD).[3]
In 1919, Heartfield was dismissed from theReichswehr film service because of his support for the strike that followed the assassination ofKarl Liebknecht andRosa Luxemburg. WithGeorge Grosz, he foundedDie Pleite, a satirical magazine.
Heartfield metBertolt Brecht in 1924, and became a member of a circle of German artists that included Brecht,Erwin Piscator,Hannah Höch, and a host of others.
Though he was a prolific producer of stage sets and book jackets, Heartfield's main form of expression was photomontage. Heartfield produced the first political photomontages.[4] He mainly worked for two publications: the dailyDie Rote Fahne ("The Red Flag") and the weeklycommunist magazineArbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung (AIZ; "Workers' Illustrated Newspaper"), the latter of which published the works for which Heartfield is best remembered. He also built theatre sets forErwin Piscator and Bertolt Brecht.
During the 1920s, Heartfield produced a great number of photomontages, many of which were reproduced as dust jackets for books such as his montage for Upton Sinclair'sThe Millennium.
It was throughrotogravure, an engraving process whereby pictures, designs, and words are engraved into the printing plate or printing cylinder, that Heartfield's montages, in the form of posters, were distributed in the streets of Berlin between 1932 and 1933, when the Nazis came to power.
His political montages regularly appeared on the cover ofArbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung from 1930 to 1938, a popular weekly whose circulation (as many as 500,000 copies at its height) rivaled any other contemporary German magazine. Since Heartfield's photomontages appeared on this cover, his work was widely seen at newsstands.
Heartfield lived in Berlin until April 1933 when theNazi Party took power. OnGood Friday, theSS broke into his apartment, but he escaped by jumping from hisbalcony and hiding in a trash bin. He fled Germany by walking over theSudeten Mountains toCzechoslovakia. He eventually rose to number five on theGestapo's most-wanted list.[5]
In 1934, he combined four bloody axes tied together to form a swastika to mock the "Blood and Iron" motto of the Reich (AIZ, Prague, 8 March 1934).[6]
In 1938, given the imminentGerman occupation of Czechoslovakia, he was forced once again to flee from the Nazis. Relocating to England, he was interned as an enemy alien, and his health began to deteriorate. Afterward, he lived inHampstead, London. His brother Wieland was refused a British residency permit in 1939 and instead left for the United States with his family.
In the aftermath ofWorld War II, Heartfield was denied his written applications to remain in England for "his work and his health", and was convinced in 1950 to join Wieland, who had been living inEast Berlin,East Germany. Heartfield moved into an apartment next to his brother's, at 129A Friedrichstrasse. However, his return to Berlin was seen with suspicion by the East German government due to his 11-year stay in England and the fact his dentist was under suspicion by theStasi. He was interrogated[note 1][7] and released having narrowly avoided a trial fortreason, but was denied admission into the East German Akademie der Künste (Academy of the Arts). He was forbidden to work as an artist and was denied health benefits.
Due to the intervention ofBertolt Brecht andStefan Heym, Heartfield was formally admitted to the Academy of the Arts in 1956. Although he subsequently produced some montages warning of the threat of nuclear war, he was never again as prolific as in his youth.
InEast Berlin, Heartfield worked closely with theatre directors such asBenno Besson andWolfgang Langhoff atBerliner Ensemble andDeutsches Theater. He created innovative stage set designs for Bertolt Brecht and David Berg. Using Heartfield's minimal props and stark stages, Brecht interrupted his plays at key junctures to have the audience be part of the action and not lose themselves in it.
In 1967, he visited Britain and began preparing a retrospective exhibition of his work, which was subsequently completed by his widow Gertrud and theBerlin Academy of Arts, and shown at the ICA in London in 1969.
He is best known for the 240 political art photomontages[8] he created from 1930 to 1938, mainly criticising fascism andNazism. His photomontages satirisingAdolf Hitler and the Nazis often subvertedNazi symbols such as theswastika in order to undermine their propaganda message.
Following a lifelong history of illness, Heartfield died on 26 April 1968 in East Berlin,East Germany. He was buried in theDorotheenstadt Cemetery, adjacent to Brecht's former home.
After hiswidow Gertrud Heartfield's death, the East German Academy of the Arts took possession of all of Heartfield's surviving works. When the West GermanAcademy of Arts absorbed the East German Academy, the Heartfield Archive was transferred with it.
From November to December, 1974 the Ministry of Culture and the Academy of Arts of the Democratic Republic of Germany (East Germany) hosted an exhibition of John Heartfield photomontages at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris.[14]
From 15 April to 6 July 1993, the New York CityMuseum of Modern Art hosted an exhibition of Heartfield's original montages.[15]
In 2005, the BritishTate Gallery held an exhibition of his photomontage pieces.[citation needed] TheMuseum Ludwig inCologne held a retrospective exhibition ofMarinus and Heartfield in 2008.[16][17]
In 2023, an animated documentary about Heartfield was released, directed byKatrin Rothe.[18]
Hurray, There's No Butter Left!,[19] was an inspiration for the song "Metal Postcard" bySiouxsie and the Banshees. This song was re-recorded in German as "Mittageisen" and released as a single in September 1979 in Germany with Heartfield's work as the cover art. A few months later the single was also released in the UK. The Swissdarkwave bandMittageisen (1981–1986) is named after this song's title.
Hurray, There's No Butter Left, was the text on the bottom of a photo of a German family, which can be found in a political comic posted into a banned communist magazine, in 1935.
Slovenian andformer Yugoslavavant-garde music groupLaibach has a number of references to Heartfield's works: the original band's logo, the 'black cross', references Heartfield's artDer alte Wahlspruch im "neuen" Reich: Blut und Eisen (1934), a cross made of four axes, as can be seen on the inner sleeves and labels of their 1987 albumOpus Dei. The cover art of their self-titled debut albumLaibach (Ropot, 1985, Ljubljana), also references Heartfield's Wie im Mittelalter… so im Dritten Reich (1934). A track calledRaus! (Herzfelde), originally onSlovenska Akropola, but also included inKrst pod Triglavom andOpus Dei asHerzfeld (Heartfield), is about Heartfield.
Britishhardcore punk bandDischarge used Heartfield's work "Peace and Fascism" for the cover artwork of their 7-inch EPNever Again, 1981.
Englishpost-punk bandBlurt recorded a song called "Hurray, the Butter is All Gone!" on their 1986 albumPoppycock.
Armenian-Americanalternative metal bandSystem of a Down used Heartfield's poster for theCommunist Party of Germany (The Hand Has Five Fingers) ascover art on their 1998self-titled debut album.
German experimental groupEinstürzende Neubauten reference Heartfield and his brotherWieland Herzfelde, as well as other Dadaist and Futurist artists such asKurt Schwitters,Hannah Höch,George Grosz andFilippo Tommaso Marinetti in the track "Let's Do It a Dada" from their 2007 albumAlles wieder offen.
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