Born in 1898, Berlin, Germany. Died in 1983, Berlin, Germany.

Heinz Hajek Halke is one of the most important German photographic artists of the 20th century. Born in Berlin and raised in South America, his activities in Berlin in the 1920s and 30s were diverse: press illustrator, picture reporter, picture editor, advertising photographer, and his photographic work during this period reflects the realities of the modern city in its subject matter and willingness to experiment. During the Nazi regime, he withdrew to Lake Constance and produced zoological and documentary images. After 1945, his preoccupation with experimental photography restored continuity with his early days. The completely free handling of photographic material – the negative as object served as the basis for successive alienations, material additions and overexposures of all kinds – resulted here in abstract photographic images close to Informel, the photograms of a Christian Schad or Laszlo Moholy-Nagy or even Subjective Photography, which Hajek-Halke himself called ” Lichtgrafiken”.

Hajek Halke’s works are represented in international collections including the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, USA; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA; Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA; The Art Institute of Chicago, USA; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France.