Józef Hecht

Józef Hecht, also known as Joseph Hecht, was a printmaker and painter. Born and educated in Poland, he made Paris his base from 1920. Trained in classical engraving techniques, Hecht was a founder of "Atelier 17", and had a profound influence on 20th-century printmakers.

Born in Łódź, Poland, in 1891, Hecht studied at the Art Academy of Kraków from 1909 to 1914. On completion of his studies in Kraków, Hecht visited museums throughout Europe. The outbreak of World War I found him in Berlin. 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.

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.

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. The images that Hecht developed at this time found renewed vigor in 1928 when Suarès and Hecht collaborated on the folio, Atlas. In Atlas Hecht began to re-combine images and forms he had previously studied-a working method that he refined throughout his life.

In 1927 Hecht's encouragement of Hayter's printmaking activities led to the establishment of Atelier 17, a cooperative printmaking studio, which endures to this day in Paris as Atelier Contrepoint. The "Atelier" influenced artists Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Alberto Giacometti and others.

In 1929 Hecht became a founding member of the group, La Jeune Gravure Contemporaine, which staged annual group shows and was influential in keeping the spirit of printmaking alive. 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. Hecht was an intermediary between the avant-garde artists of Atelier 17 and more traditional printmakers.

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.

Text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2023