Józef Hecht

Trained in classical engraving techniques, Hecht was a founder of "Atelier 17", and had a profound influence on 20th-century printmakers.

[1] Born in Łódź, Poland, in 1891, Hecht studied at the Art Academy of Kraków from 1909 to 1914.

Due to the fact that he had done his studies in the Austrian zone in Poland and thanks to prizes obtained at the Académie des Beaux-Arts, Hecht was given the option of going to neutral Norway, where he lived from 1914 to 1919.

[2] Immediately following the armistice, Hecht traveled to Italy; and two years later to Paris, where he maintained his studio until his death.

At this time Hecht became a member of the Salon d'Automne, thereby gaining an entrée into the Parisian art world and a chance to exhibit his work on a regular basis.

At his Paris studio, he taught burin-engraving - the classic copper-engraving technique - to many artists, including British surrealist painter and printmaker Stanley William Hayter, South African-born British painter and printmaker Dolf Rieser.

[3] The year 1926 was a turning point in Hecht's career and heralded the most successful period of his life.

He published his first suite of six prints, l'Arche de Noë, which included a preface by the French symbolist Gustave Kahn and was exhibited in December that year at the Paris gallery Le nouvel essor.

Hecht's future collaborator, mystical narrator André Suarès, wrote a laudatory catalogue article.

In Atlas Hecht began to re-combine images and forms he had previously studied—a working method that he refined throughout his life.

[4] The "Atelier" influenced artists Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Alberto Giacometti and others.

Hecht also associated with members of Les Peintres-Graveurs Indépendants, founded in 1923 by J. E. Laboureur and Raoul Dufy.

It is doubtful that Hecht knew each member of these groups, but it is probable that he was familiar with their work and they with his, and that this provided an opportunity for the exchange of techniques, subjects, and ideas.

[6] Between 1926 and 1938 Hecht's engravings were published in various collections (see Chronology), his work was widely shown, and it gained critical acclaim.

Hecht won two gold medals at the 1937 Paris World's Fair.

Of Jewish descent, Hecht left Paris before the start of World War II to live in the Savoy region near the Swiss-Italian border, where he worked as an agricultural laborer.

Hayter, who had moved Atelier 17 to New York City for the duration of the war, returned to Paris and found his old friend in poor health and out of work.

With renewed enthusiasm, Hecht began producing numerous engravings, while also developing new methods for printing in relief.

Following graduation, travels in Europe, visiting museums, spends a brief period studying in Berlin, then goes to Norway at the outbreak of World War I.

1926 Publishes l'Arche de Noë, a suite of six engravings with a preface by Gustave Kahn; l'Eubage aux Antipodes de l'Unité, five engravings with prose by Blaise Cendrars.

"Le Animaux de Joseph Hecht," Art et Décoration, LXI (February, 1934), 44-48.