Code: 10182
Dimensions:
JOZEF HECHT Lódz 1891 – 1951 Paris
Elan (Energy/Enthusiasm) and Univers (Universe).
Double sided wood printing block; 1916-1917. Tonneau-Ryckelynck & Plumart 20 and 22.
The block in excellent condition, with Hecht’s vibrant solar and plant-shaped forms defined with precision, now mounted on a specially prepared stand. After early studies in Poland, Hecht spent the years of the first World War in Norway, but by 1920 he made his way to Paris. There he established a studio and became associated with the Salon d’Automne which had since 1903 become a center of avant-garde artistic activity in France.
His printmaking flourished with his broad critical acceptance and his collaborations with literary figures such as André Suarès. He was also active as a teacher, and one of his students was William Stanley Hayter whose later surrealist prints may have, at least in part, been inspired by his studies with Hecht. By the outbreak of World War II, Hecht, as a Jew, was forced to flee Paris, and during the war managed to survive in the south of France as a farm worker.
When Hecht returned to Paris at the end of the war in poor health, it was his former student Hayter who helped Hecht to return to printmaking. Hecht died of a heart attack in 1961.
Our double-sided woodcut matrix must have been produced while Hecht was in Norway. This early work shows not only his bold dense of design but also his graphic assurance. The elemental forms of plants and the streaming rays of the sun constitute a remarkable sense of what must be seen as a modern sense of landscape.
288 x 198 mm 11 3/8 x 7 ¾ inches
