learned about the identity of his father. His father's name was Franz Herzfeld, but published his works under the pseudonym "Franz Held." He was a socialist playwright, author, and poet during the reign of Otto Von Bismarck. Throughout the rest of his career, Herzfeld would maintain the socialist convictions of his parents. In 1912, in memory of Franz Herzfeld's 50th birthday, a publishing company printed a book that contained selected works by "Franz Held," to which Helmut designed the book cover; one of his first commissioned works (Brecht, 10).Thus began Herzfeld's work in art and politics. He was revolutionary in both and therefore was fascinated by politically and artistically radical German publications, such as Sturm and Die Aktion. In the midst of his involvement in art and politics, WWI began. Herzfeld did not go war, although his brother served in the medical corps (Brecht, 11). In protest of the anti-British hate campaign of the German government, Helmut Herzfeld anglicized his name to John Heartfield. He attempted to have this name legitimized, but the German government refused (Danto, 918). In 1915, Heartfield met another artist named George Grosz. Soon, Grosz became the only artist that mattered to Heartfield. His revolutionary artwork inspired Heartfield, and he destroyed all of the art that he had created up to that point. It was around this time that Heartfield's brother, Wieland, purchased the copyright of an old school magazine in order to publish the anti-war drawings of Grosz. This purchase also gave Heartfield the opportunity to begin designing book-covers of revolutionary books. It was also at this time that Heartfield got involved in the Dada movement along with Grosz. The movement was very appealing to people like Heartfield and Grosz, who wanted to express what they thought about the world. They wanted to stop the production of false sentiments and ideas that were being created by governmental i...
