Hella Guth was born Helena Guthova into a Jewish family in Kirchenbirk, Austria-Hungary (now Kostelní Bríza, Czech Republic) in 1908 and studied at the School of Applied Arts in Vienna and at the Prague Academy. Following the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939, she immigrated to London where she received a scholarship in 1942 from the Cultural Office of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile which enabled her to devote herself solely to painting. She exhibited with the Ben Uri Gallery and Isobar Club in London and worked on a range of artistic projects, but unable to fully earn a living as an artist in England, in 1951 Guth moved to Paris, where she remained for the rest of her life, carving a career as a successful abstract painter.
Artist Hella Guth (née Helena Guthova) was born into a Jewish family in Kirchenbirk, Austria-Hungary (now Kostelní Bríza, Czech Republic) in 1908. In 1926 she attended the School of Applied Arts in Vienna and in 1930 studied at the Prague Academy. Afterwards, she worked in advertising and as a magazine illustrator, producing woodcuts for Bertolt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera in 1933. Guth also assisted refugees from Nazi Germany, supported anti-fascist protests, and designed for a left-leaning political theatre group in Prague. Following the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, she travelled to Ostrava, where she joined the Thomas Mann Gruppe, an organisation helping refugees to escape to England via Poland; about two months later she left for London. Many of Guth’s pre-war paintings remained in Prague with her mother, who later perished in Auschwitz, and were subsequently lost.
After her arrival in England, Guth received the support of the Czech Refugee Trust Fund (CRTF), a charitable organisation assisting refugees escaping the Nazi and Communist regimes. Through the CRTF club Guth met Lucia Moholy, Bauhaus photographer, originally from Prague (and wife of László Moholy-Nagy, Bauhaus professor), who encouraged her to pursue her artistic career in London. Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, Guth’s brother managed to send over some of her earlier drawings and graphics. Moholy was enthusiastic about these and attempted to put Guth in contact with English critics. In May 1940, Guth met noted modern art critic, Herbert Read, who was interested in continental modernism and the work of artists in exile. He was fascinated by a small picture in particular, which Guth later considered to be the beginning of her surrealist phase. Guth also visited advertising agencies with her work, but with little success. She received some commissions from the Czechoslovak government-in-exile, contributing illustrations to the Czechoslovakian newspaper Obzor, and creating book covers, including for the English edition of Karel Čapek's Krakatita (An Atomic Phantasy) published in 1948. Guth also met fellow Czechoslovak refugees Otto Eisner, Stefan Körner and Stefan Lörn, and artists, Jakub Bauernfreund (Jacob Bornfriend) and Bedřich Feigl (both of whom showed with the Ben Uri Art Society). In 1945 she began producing hand-painted silk scarves for Harrods department store in London, which sold quickly, giving her some financial security. She also travelled to Cornwall, where she produced ink drawings of coastal fishing villages. At the beginning of the Blitz in 1940, Guth moved from Hampstead in north London (a popular enclave for émigrés) to Bloomsbury in central London, then to an agricultural commune of immigrants in Wiveliscombe, Somerset, where she married Otto Eisner. However, the marriage was short lived, the couple divorcing in 1944. Returning to London, she tried to find employment as a technical draftswoman, but as so-called 'aliens' were not allowed to work in industrial companies, she eventually became a waitress at the Regent Palace Hotel. In 1942 she received a scholarship from the Cultural Office of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile which enabled her to devote herself to painting again.
In 1943 she had her first solo show at the Czechoslovak Institute in London, exhibiting over 30 drawings, watercolours, gouaches and several large surrealist oil paintings. The show received positive reviews in the Čechoslovák newspaper: '[…] There are several sharply individual and well executed paintings here that would have attracted interest even in a good exhibition in pre-war Prague – [...] in particular The Triumphant Mouse, in which the dramatization of the motif shows […] great technical mastery […]’. The exhibition, organised by the British Council, was reprised at the Scottish Czechoslovak House in Edinburgh. Guth also attended ceramic courses at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts and at St. Martins School of Art in London. During this period, she lived with Dora Diamantová (Franz Kafka's last girlfriend), whose Jewish restaurant in the East End Guth decorated with folklore designs. Together with renowned Yiddish actor Meier Tzelniker, Guth also helped to renovate the Grand Palais Jewish Theatre. In 1945 she exhibited paintings at the Isobar Club, and in 1946 and 1949 her work featured in two of Ben Uri's contemporary group exhibitions. However, émigré gallerist, Erica Brausen, saw that Guth would have a more successful future in France, as an abstract painter, suggesting in no uncertain terms: ''You can't do things like that here! Go to Paris, when you succeed, then you can come back'. 'So I went', Hella said later' (Moya Tonnies, 1992).
In 1951 Guth moved to Paris with her second husband, art critic and fellow Czechoslovak, Franck Popper. Her 1952 exhibition with the Vivet Gallery marked the beginning of the most successful period in her artistic career; between 1954 and 1959 she had regular exhibitions at the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles (focussing on abstract art) and in 1957 she was mentioned in Michel Seuphor's Dictionary of Abstract Painting. In 1958 Guth was awarded the silver medal Prix Suisse de Peinture Abstraite. She continued to make and show work until the end of her life.
Hella Guth died in Paris, France in 1992. Her work is represented in public collections abroad, including the Jewish Museum Berlin and Jewish Museum Prague, as well as in Paris, Leipzig and Israel. In 2008 the Jewish Msueum, Prague marked the 100th anniversary of her birth with an exhibition, Hella Guth: Dissolved Figures, and an accompanying catalogue with a text by the exhibition's curator Arno Pařík.
Hella Guth in the Ben Uri collection
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Hella Guth]