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An exceptional personality. A visionary painter. With an intimate knowledge of printmaking. An illustrator and sculptor. Curiously forgotten. After nearly a century Józef Hecht (1891‒1951) returns to his native Łódź hopefully to gain wide and lasting recognition.

Józef Hecht. Artistic Forces puts together over sixty various works of the artist yielding insight into his colourful life and preoccupations. While implying intensity of emotion and a passion for creating art, the title of the exhibition also makes a reference to nature which was a major source of inspiration for Hecht’s art, starting with the four classical elements of the Universe – water, air, earth, and fire.

 

The artist explored the interrelations between them that give rise to meteorological phenomena and, as a result, provide conditions for the development of plants and animals. Unable to see in person some of the species of flora and fauna he was interested in, he used his imagination.

The exhibition follows a route across three areas of significance to the traveller, observer and artist that Hecht was. They are: places and landscapes of Northern and Southern Europe, nature in the broad sense, and printmaking with emphasis on copperplate engraving.

 

Hecht died at sixty, and his rather short life can be divided into several stages. The earliest one took place in Łódź where the artist was born in 1891 into a Jewish family. At eighteen he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków where he studied under Wojciech Weiss (painting) and Józef Pankiewicz (printmaking).

With support from his family Hecht was able to visit Vienna and Rome in his youth. He was mesmerised by Capri. On the outbreak of the First World War, which found him in Berlin, he left for Norway. During the five years he spent there, until 1919, the artist gladly absorbed the beauty and austerity of Scandinavian landscapes. But it was Paris that turned out to be his ultimate destination, he was to live there for several decades. It was where he achieved financial success and recognition in artistic circles. The famous gallery Berthe Weil organised solo exhibitions of his work, alongside Picasso and Modigliani.

 

Józef Hecht (1891-1951), Botanical Garden in Paris, c. 1925, oil on canvas, 54 × 65 cm, private collection. Photo: Wejman Gallery Archive / Art & Modern Foundation

 

 

Hecht built up many contacts within the community of outstanding painters, sculptors, writers and poets, but never departed from his own path, even literally. It often took him to the zoological garden in Paris and to the most remote corners of French provinces. His atelier was where he was in his element.

 

Instrumental in the revival of artistic engraving, Hecht became a master of it and acquired his nickname “the virtuoso with the burin.” Although he adhered to the traditional principles of the technique, he focussed on pure line and gave his works a modern form akin to Art Deco. He played an active part in establishing Atelier 17 which opened in 1927, the famous printmaking studio in Paris run by Englishman Stanley William Hayter, Hecht’s student and friend. Death put an end to Hecht’s experiments which involved, for instance, impressing various arrangements of small master plates.

 

→ More information and artist biography

 

He exhibited regularly in Paris, in art galleries and salons: Salon d’Automne, Salon des Tuileries and Salon des Indépendante, in Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, the United States and South Africa, and in his motherland which he always held so dear. Łódź, and specifically the Municipal Art Gallery, invited Hecht to come and stage an exhibition of his creative output in 1928.

The works now on display come from the following collections: the Museum of the City of Łódź, National Museum in Kraków, Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, Regional Museum in Siedlce, National Library in Warsaw, Wejman Gallery, and private collections.

 

Organizers:

Muzeum Miasta Łodzi and Art & Modern Foundation

 

Exhibition curator:
Professor Katarzyna Kulpińska

 

Honorary patronage:
Ministry of Culture and National Heritage
Narodowy Instytut Polskiego Dziedzictwa Kulturowego za Granicą POLONIKA
Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich POLIN

 

Media patronage:
TOK FM, artpost, Spotkania z zabytkami, Presto, DesignDoc, Niezła Sztuka