Heinz Hajek-Halke

Heinz Hajek-Halke, born in Berlin, Germany in 1898, the son of Paul Halke.[2] He spent part of his childhood in Argentina. He started to study graphics in Berlin in 1915, served as a soldier in 1916 in World War One, and then continued his studies after that.[1]

Heinz Hajek-Halke worked as a photo editor, press photographer, and commercial artist, concentrating almost from the start on montage techniques. In the 1930s with the rise of the Nazis he lived quietly and photographed small animal life-forms.[3]

In 1937, Hajek-Halke travelled to Brazil where he produced, a documentary about a snake farm. He returned to Germany, in 1939.

During World War II, he was conscripted by the German army and worked as an aerial and company photographer for the Dornier aircraft company on Lake Constance. After the war he spent a short time as a French prisoner of war . He then made a living by selling snake venom to the pharmaceutical industry produced on his own snake farm.[3]

In 1949, Hajek-Halke became a member of the German group Fotoform and his abstractions, photomontages and luminograms were included in the first of two "subjektive fotografie" exhibitions.

Hajek-Halke was appointed lecturer in photography and graphic design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin in 1955. Along with Felix H. Man, he won the 1965 Culture Award from the German Society for Photography. During his lifetime he published two books, Experimentelle Fotografie and Lichtgrafik. He died in Berlin in 1983.