JOHN HEARTFIELD (1891-1968)

HEARTFIELD, John (artist, 1891-1968) – A collection of 11 pamphlets, 8vo (all approx. 187 x 122 mm.), promoting the Soviet Union in Britain with cover designs by Heartfield.

A rare grouping of Heartfield’s output towards the end of the Second World War promoting the USSR.

Comprising: MIKAILOV, N.N. Soviet Land and the People. London: Soviet News, 1945. [With:] KARPINSKI, V.A. What Are collective Farms? London: Lindsay Drummond, 1944. (Ink numbering on front cover.) [And:] BOGOLEPOV, M.I. The Soviet Financial System. What it is and how it works. London: Lindsay Drummond, 1945. (Library numbering and marks on front cover.) [And:] ANON. Education in the USSR. London: Soviet News, 1945. [And:] FREIE DEUTSCHE JUGEND IN GROSSBRITANNIEN [FREE GERMAN YOUTH IN GREAT BRITAIN]. Confessions of a Nazi Soldier. London: [n.d. but c. 1943]. (Staples rusted, covers becoming detached.) [And:] SVERDLOV, G.M. Legal Rights of the Soviet Family. Marriage, motherhood and the family in Soviet law. London: Soviet News, 1945; [And:] KUCZYNSKI, Jürgen. 300,000,000 Slaves and Serfs. Labour under the fascist new order. London: ING Publications Ltd, [1942]. [And:] MERKER, Paul. Germany Today … and Germany Tomorrow. London: ING Publications Ltd, 1943. [And:] EHRENBURG, Ilya. We Come as Judges. London: Soviet News, 1945. (Extremities rubbed.) [And:] FREIE DEUTSCHE BEWEGUNG IN GROSSBRITANNIEN [FREE GERMAN MOVEMENT IN GREAT BRITAIN] – LARSEN, Egon, (translator). Free Germans in the French Maquis. London: ING Publications Ltd, 1945. [And:] ANON. ‘A German Communist.’ Report from Berlin. London: ING Publications Ltd, 1942.

Born Helmut Herzfeld in Berlin on 19 June 1891, Heartfield anglicized his name sometime around 1916-1917 as a protest against the virulent anti-British sentiment then present in WWI Germany. At this time he started his artistic experiments with photomontages alongside George Groz, later founding in 1917 with his brother Wieland the publishing house Malik-Verlag. This venture prospered as Heartfield’s photomontaged dustjackets proved extremely successful in selling books.

In 1918, Heartfield joined the German Communist Party, while artistically he became active in the Dada movement, and helped to organise the First International Dada Fair in Berlin in 1920. His artistic circle included Erwin Piscator and Bertolt Brecht, for whom he designed theatre sets, but his main form of artistic expression continued to the photomontage. He produced work mainly for two publications: the daily Die Rote Fahne (‘The Red Flag’) and the weekly Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung (AIZ, ‘The Workers’ Illustrated Newspaper’). Heartfield is probably best remembered for his work on the latter publication, and his caricatures of the Nazi Party and its leaders.

These artistic political acts led to the SS raid on his Berlin studio and apartment in April 1933, where Heartfield escaped by leaping from his balcony and hiding behind rubbish bins. He fled Germany by way of the Sudeten Mountains in Czechoslovakia, but then had to flee again in 1938 with the German occupation of that country, this time to London.

At the beginning of the Second World War, Heartfield was interned for a short while as an enemy alien, but was released and permitted to live in Hampstead, London. It was during this time that he earned his living illustrating books and the types of pamphlets in the current lot. His belief in communism never seems to have wavered, but did not immediately return to communist-ruled East Germany after the war, only arriving in 1950. There he was joined by his brother who had been living in the United States for the duration of the war. Viewed by the communist authorities as suspect because of his extended stay in Britain, he was never trusted by them, and was denied entry to the East German Akademie der Künste (Academy of Arts)] until Bertolt Brecht and Stefan Heym intervened on his behalf. He was finally admitted to the Akademie in 1956, although deteriorating health severely restricted his artistic output towards the end of his life. He died on April 26, 1968 in East Berlin.

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