John Heartfield was born in Berlin in 1891; a member of the Dada movement and the communist party, he became known for his scathing political photomontages attacking the Nazi party, and in 1933, following the rise of Hitler to the Chancellorship in Germany, he fled first to Czechoslovakia, arriving in England in 1938. During his years in London, he joined the Free German League of Culture, contributing articles to its associated periodical; he also gave art-historical lectures, worked as an editor, and produced stage props, before returning to Berlin after the war; his photomontages are now considered to be some of the most important satirical images of the twentieth century.
Photomontage pioneer John Heartfield was born Hellmuth Franz Joseph Stolzenberg into a Jewish family in Berlin, Germany in 1891. His father Franz Herzfeld was a socialist writer, and his mother Alice (née Stolzenberg) was a textile worker and political activist. From 1899, abandoned by their parents, the children were brought up by successive guardians. Between 1908 and 1914, Heartfield studied at the Royal Arts and Crafts School in Munich and the Kunst und Handwerkerschule Berlin-Charlottenburg. Conscripted in 1914 and invalided out the following year, in 1916, he changed his name to John Heartfield to protest against anti-British sentiment in Germany. in 1917 Heartfield, his brother Wieland, and artist George Grosz launched the publishing house Malik-Verlag in Berlin, and Heartfield made his first photomontage, experimenting with Grosz in pasting photographic images together. From 1917-20 Heartfield also worked for the Militärische Bildstelle, later known as UFA (department of film animation). In 1919 Heartfield joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). In 1920 he co-founded the Dada art movement with Grosz, helping to organise the First International Dada Fair in Berlin; his circle included Bertold Brecht and Hannah Höch. Heartfield became known for his political photomontages attacking fascism and the Nazi party, published in Communist periodicals such as Die Rote Fahne [The Red Flag] and Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung [AIZ, Workers' Illustrated Newspaper], the latter with a weekly circulation of 350,000. In 1930 Heartfield stated that 'New political problems require new means of propaganda. For this, photography possesses the greatest persuasive power' (quoted in Kriebel 2008, p. 99). From 1931-32 Heartfield travelled in the Soviet Union, exhibiting about 300 works in Moscow, lecturing, and teaching photomontage at the Institute of Polygraphy. In 1933 Heartfield was forced to flee Germany for Czechoslovakia. While in Prague, he continued working for AIZ, altogether executing over 200 photomontages. In 1934, in his absence, the Third Reich withdrew his German citizenship.
In 1938, with the German invasion of Czechoslovakia now imminent, Heartifeld arrived in England, his application supported by journalists Martha Gellhorn, wife of Ernest Hemingway, and Eric Gedye. Along with many other refugees from Nazism, Heartfield was interned in 1940 as an 'enemy alien' and held in three different camps (including Huyton, outside Liverpool) for several weeks, before being released on health grounds. He subsequently lodged at 47 Downshire Hill, Hampstead, home of lawyer and refugee artist Fred Uhlman (1901-1985) and his wife Diana, who in 1939 established the Freier Deutscher Kulturbund [FGLC, Free German League of Culture, a left-leaning organisation supporting German-speaking émigrés] at their house. As Uhlman later wryly recalled, he had offered Heartfield a room for a few days, but he stayed for four years (Brinson 2010, p. 14). Heartfield actively contributed to the FGLC's programme, lecturing on art and writing for its magazine, Freie Deutsche Kultur, creating stage designs for its theatre (https://ajr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/1957_august.pdf), and designing multiple book covers for its publications (Brinson 2010, p. 55). He was also involved with the Artists' Refugee Committee (ARC), helping artists to escape Nazi-occupied Europe. Without a Home Office work permit, Heartfield was unable to work as a freelance cartoonist until 1943. Furthermore, though revered by leftist elites since the 1920s, his reputation had diminished since its prewar peak. He nevertheless contributed to several exhibitions, including One Man's War Against Hitler, Arcade Gallery (under FGLC auspices) and Living Art in England in Aid of Czechoslovakian and Jewish Refugees, London Gallery (both 1939), and Allies Inside Germany, Regent Street (1942), and to the satirical magazine Lilliput, while Reynolds News published several photomontages, including The Voice that Hitler Fears (1939) accompanying an article about the Freedom Station, a dissident German broadcaster. Heartfield also gave art history lectures, worked as an editor, produced stage props, and assembled a large collection of newspaper cuttings with images by his British colleagues [now in the archives of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin]. A particular fan of cartoonist David Low, famed for his anti-Nazi stance, Heartfield also owned at least two drawings by Victor Weisz (1913-1966), known as Vicky, a fellow Berliner who had immigrated to London in 1935 [Vicky's work is represented in the Ben Uri collection.] Between 1943 and 1950, Heartfield also worked for publisher, Lindsay Drummond Ltd, and, briefly, for Penguin Books; in 1946 he was involved in the publication of The Pen is Mightier, a collection of wartime cartoons, previously published in newspapers.
In 1950 Heartfield was offered a professorship in East Berlin, his return treated with suspicion by the East German government given his prolonged stay in England. Interrogated and released, he narrowly avoided a trial for treason, but was denied admission into the East German Academy of the Arts, prohibited from working as an artist and denied health benefits. However, due to the intervention of Brecht and Stefan Heym, Heartfield was eventually admitted to the Academy in 1956. Although he subsequently produced montages warning of the threat of nuclear war, he was never again as prolific as during his pre-war career. In East Berlin, Heartfield created innovative stage set designs for the Berliner Ensemble and Deutsches Theater. Heartfield returned to Britain in 1967 to prepare for a retrospective; this was subsequently completed by his widow Gertrud and the Berlin Academy of Arts, and shown at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London in 1969. Heartfield died in East Berlin in 1968. His work is represented in UK collections including Tate; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and National Galleries Scotland; his artwork and archives are held by the Akademie der Künste, Berlin.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [John Heartfield]
Publications related to [John Heartfield] in the Ben Uri Library