John HEARTFIELD (1891-1968)
HEARTFIELD : HELMUT HERZFELDE dit JOHN (1891-1968). Peintre allemand. Attiré très tôt par le marxisme, Heartfied, qui vit à Berlin depuis 1913, est influencé par George Grosz ; celui-ci l’introduit dans le groupe dadaïste en 1918. Avec Grosz, Heartfield exécutera quelques photomontages de style futuriste (Dadamerika). En juin 1920, il participe à la Foire internationale dada (avec Raoul Hausmann et Grosz). Peu après cette date, Heartfield crée ses premiers photomontages militants, spécialité pour laquelle il abandonnera bientôt la peinture. Son frère, Wieland Herzfelde, le fondateur des éditions Malik (qui n’avait pas " anglicisé " son nom), joua également un certain rôle dans le mouvement par ses audaces typographiques et lui consacra un livre important en 1971. Membre du Parti communiste allemand, Heartfield devint le principal auteur d’affiches " modernes " stigmatisant la montée du nazisme, tout en appliquant sa maîtrise dans le photomontage à des couvertures de revues, des jaquettes de livres, des décors de théâtre et de cinéma. Il est en particulier engagé en 1930 comme collaborateur du journal ouvrier Arbeiter Illustrierte Zeitung (A.I.Z.), dont il illustre de nombreuses couvertures de photomontages dont la violence fera dire à Louis Aragon que Heartfield " est le prototype et le modèle de l’artiste antifasciste ". En 1933, il se réfugie à Prague, puis en Angleterre de 1938 à 1949 ; il rentre, en 1950, en Allemagne de l’Est et s’installe jusqu’à sa mort à Berlin-Est, où il créera des affiches et des décors pour le Berliner Ensemble et pour le Deutsches Theater.
***
Helmut Herzfelde was born in Berlin, Germany on 19th June, 1891. His father was a socialist writer and his mother was a textile worker and trade union activist. As a result of their politics the family was forced to flee to Switzerland in 1896. After leaving school at fourteen Herzfelde worked for a bookseller in Wiesbadenl.
In 1907 he became an assistant to the painter, Hermann Bouffier, and two years later became a student at the School of Applied Arts in Munich.
In 1912 Herzefelde started work as a designer in Mannheim for a year before moving to Berlin to study under Ernst Neuman at the Arts and Crafts School.
During the First World War Herzefelde began contributing work to Die Neue Jugend, an arts journal published by his brother, Wieland Herzfelde. He was drafted into the infantry where he meets George Grosz. Herzefelde continued to contribute illustrations to Die Neue Jugend. While working for the journal Heartfield developed a new style of work that later became known as photomontage (the production of pictures by rearranging selected details of photographs to form a new and convincing unity). A pacifist and Marxist, Herzfelde, changed his name to John Heartfield in 1916 in protest against German nationalism.
After the war Heartfield joined the newly formed German Communist Party (KPD) and over the next fifteen years produces designs and posters for the organization. During this period artists such as George Grosz, Otto Dix, Max Ernst and Kurt Schwitters form the German Dada group. Some of these artists, including Ernst and Schwitters, were influenced by the work of Heartfield and developed his ideas on photomontage.
In 1923 Heartfield became editor of the satirical magazine, Der Knöppel. Heartfield also worked for the socialist magazine, A.I.Z., where he used photomontage to attack Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party. Under threat of arrest, Heartfield was forced to leave Germany in 1938.
Heartfield moved to England where he produced photomontages for the Reynolds News, Picture Post and Penguin Books.
Heartfield returned to Germany in 1950 where he designed scenery and posters for the Berliner Ensemble and the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. In 1960 he became professor at the German Academy of Arts in Berlin.John Heartfield died in Berlin on 26th April, 1968
***
When John Heartfield and I invented photomontage in my South End studio at five o'clock on a May morning in 1916, neither of us had any inkling of its great possibilities, nor of the thorny yet successful road it was to take. As so often happens in life, we had stumbled across a vein of gold without knowing it.
George GROSZ interviewed by Erwin PISCATOR (1928)
George GROSZ & John HEARTFIELD. DADA-Merica, Photomontage, 1920