Heinz Henghes (1906-1975) was born in Hamburg in 1906, a ‘Mischling’ of mixed Jewish and German descent. In America for almost 10 years before returning to Europe at a time of great political unrest Heinz spent time in Italy where he enjoyed the patronage of Ezra Pound, despite Pounds noted anti-semitism. In London at the outbreak of war Heinz was interned and sent to Australia on the notorious ship the Dunera.
Ian Henghes, the artist’s son, presents his father’s extraordinary story and the contact he had with other artists, writers and thinkers of his time.
Ian Henghes is an online communications specialist working primarily in the arts, education and charitable sectors. Initially trained in photography, film and television, Ian founded a video editing company in London’s Soho in the 1980s, and in the 1990s was project leader for public access systems for the British Museum and the Corporation of London, as well as websites for Microsoft, the BBC and many others. A long-term project that is about to be relaunched is historyworld.net, a major world history website with highly interactive timelines.
This event is part of the online series “Flight or Fight. stories of artists under repression” which is organized by The Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art in New York (https://fritzaschersociety.org).
#HeinzHenghes #EzraPound #IsamuNoguchi #sculpture #Dunera
welcome to Art and interment and hangis the starway sculptor in our series flight of fight stories of artists under repression I’m Rachel Stern executive director of the Fitz Asha Society for persecuted ostracized and band art based in New York I’m honored to introduce today’s esteemed speaker Ian hangus is an online communication specialist working primarily in the Arts education and Char charitable sectors initially trained in photography film and television Yan founded a video editing company in London Soho in 19 in the 1980s and in the 1990s was Project leader for Public Access systems for the British Museum and the corporation of London as well as websites for Microsoft the BBC and many others a long-term project that is about to be relaunched is historyworld Donnet major world history website which with highly interactive timelines Yan is also the son of hin hangus Welcome Yan thank you well I will um introduce myself a little more and um then switch over to my presentation so thank you for inviting me to speak Rachel and thank you all for um zooming in indeed to hear about um H sis my father um part of our connection to works of art is knowing something about the artist this might sound kind of obvious but it only became so to me when I was asked to provide something of my father’s life story to give his work some context um my father Heins as I could called him died when I was only 16 and I’d only ever heard sort of anecdotes about his life so I had very to say about him when I was first asked this was really not good enough I realized and it led me to talking to people he had known and researching in various archives I feel a bit like I’ve been sort of gathering pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and gradually assembling a picture of the father I lost all too early in my life so some of the connections and stories I hope you’ll agree are worth sharing and uh that’s what I hope to do now so let’s go over to uh screen share which right so there he is and let me bring up some slides so Heights was born in Hamburg on the 20th of August 1906 not with the name hangis but as Gustaf kman his mother was from a musical Jewish Family her grandfather and great grandfather were both um cantors in fact in the Hamburg synagogue and her brother Max winterfeld was known for his popular operettas and songs under the name of Jean jilber as a child Heights would visit a big house by the van Lake in Berlin that belonged to his uncle Max here Max or Jean jilber is in the top hat on the right H’s grandmother is I think the woman on the far left picture was taken in 1913 on the occasion of the bar mitzah of Max’s son Robert Heins was not brought up in the Jewish faith his father was an apparently rather severe Lutheran mixed marriages were not unusual in Hamburg but his parents’ Union was troubled and ended in divorce when Heins was only 14 his childhood sounds to have been turbulent his mother volatile around the time of her divorce hins took a gun from her hand as she was threatening to commit suicide perhaps it’s not surprising that he was Keen to escape as soon as he could at 14 or 15 he was caught by the Hamburg Harbor police trying to Bard a ship and sent home in June 1924 at the age of 17 however he made another this time successful attempt to become a stowaway on board the Deutch land which was bound for New York talk arriving penniless life was really very tough hins knew the harsh reality of an empty belly to steal hunger pangs he would drink water from public fountains or if he had a little money take a cup of coffee and empty the Sugar Bowl into his pockets to eek out the sweetness during the day a largely autobiographical Nolla e ego gives an insight into these times in New York Heins lived for a while at number three University Place the Japanese American sculptor nuchi had just set up Studio at number 127 thanks to meeting and assisting nuchi hint started sculpture himself here are a couple of his early pieces he was also exposed to music literature philosophy and poetry HS was in America for8 years returning to Europe at the start of January 193 3 sadly Germany was now not a place to be Jewish or more precisely as far as the Nazis were concerned a michling or someone of mixed blood like hints many of those on the Jewish side of his family were leaving the country where they were able to H’s Uncle Jean jilber ironically had his music appropriated by the Nazis and used at their rallies Geral even attempted to deal with this inconvenience by offering Max honory Aryans ship but rather than accept he fled the country he of course lost his big house on Van which in a further historical irony was within sight of another even larger property on the opposite Shore where the van conference to discuss the final solution to the Jewish question was held in 1942 after only a few months Heins managed to leave Germany going first to Paris then ralo in Italy to meet the poet and an instigator of the vorticist movement Ezra pound later during the war pound would be on the radio in Italy championing both Hitler and musolini this is um Ezra pound by heints from 1975 pound was a prominent anti-semite even remarking to K Sage the surrealist painter and a mutual friend that should not help Hein or buy his work as the Jews must be kept down fortunately pound completely ignored his own words in his interaction with Heins and was very supportive of him sculpture is Stone said pound and um gave hin some stone for him to carve H advised him and encouraged him to read books from his Library one piece of advice significant to Heins was never explain what you have stated despite trying to deter K Sage from buying work which only had the effect of ending their friendship and did encourage signora ageli the wife of the head of the Fiat company to buy Heights of sculptures it seems that pound distinguished between big and little Jews and that only the former who were bankers and those with the money and the influence to play a part in the Affairs of state were evil in his eyes HS was a little Jew so in this respect he may have been somewhat forgiven his race after the war pound was consigned to a mental institution by the occupying American forces despite everything Heights was sympathetic to him writing to pounds publisher James Lan who had become a firm friend I am interested in Ezra the man who treated me well and not in Ezra who went haywire on the radio after staying for a time in rapalo with pound hins established a studio in Milan and had a number of solo exhibitions in Italy as well as one I think was with K Sage the first one it was also while in Italy that hin started working as hangis and he did not want to be known as Gman during visits to Paris hins met the sculpt of bruzi and assisted in his studio ranui also gave the young sculptor advice turning him with respect to Art to never do anything you don’t want to do be great if one could always follow that precept K Sage also came to Paris and heints introduced her to Eve tongi who she was later to marry others hints met included Max an and Andre brutal who had written the first surrealist Manifesto in 1932 HS also appears in the journals of the writer Anna E nin from 1937 and was clearly smitten with her she was intrigued by him and hesitated in her response writing in her journal why does he stir me his face is full of softness of Soul of feeling they a mesh one one falls into the softness he has the laughter of a child he is feminine he’s full of cander he brings me two poems and a green beetle with a gold rust stomach anaise was however in relationships at the time with both Henry Miller and Gonzalo Moore and ultimately this left no space for heints it is possible that hins was introduced to Henry and Anna East by June Mansfield Henry’s first wife as he had previously met her in New York in 1938 Ms visited the do in the company of Jean Jan and Henry Miller they went on Ezra pound’s advice to follow in the footsteps of the troubadors this is a bust of je Jan which heints made years later and here is a drawing of Henry Miller by heints from 1975 Heins and Miller were not exactly best friends in a Letter to Ezra pound Heins wrote about meeting Miller I naturally fought with him at once since he is precisely as intolerable as I am he is the most rapacious person I have ever seen speaking to him you have the impression that you are being sucked out and that whatever is not you use ful to Henry Miller will be thrown aside before the trip to the doine hins had come to live in London arriving in October 1937 a few days later he wrote to Ezra pound reporting on some of the people who he had met as follows there seems to be a lot going on met Barbara heworth Ben Nicholson and Sandy CER also Garbo and S Adrien Stokes who is on his way to Venice now I’m invited to a party B hepworth’s and hope to meet Herbert Reed there in due course Heights was featured in Living Art in England and had exhibited at Peggy guggenheim’s Gallery in Cork Street they’re currently doing a catalog reson of what she first exhibited in fact and um I was visited recently by them as they’re piecing together everything that was in that those cork Street exhibitions in her early years the diarist Joan Windam first met Heights at a party in Chelsea in October 1939 he came over and sat beside me on the floor such a strange intriguing voice and such a thoroughly lovely and animal face she wrote she goes on to describe the scene and conversation in detail mentioning how Heins poured out whiskey for his Dalmation waffle and even Illustrated it one does not pour Whiskey on the floor at the best part as a German National living in London with Jewish Heritage contemplating the future must have been particularly stressful to Heins he was just one of about 47,000 refugees from Nazi Germany then living in Britain a majority of whom were Jewish during the 1930s as immigration stemming from the rise of the Nazis increased both the most powerful newspaper Barons in England Lord beaver Brook and Lord ramir stoked anti-semitic sentiment through their papers ramir directly supported Hitler he traveled to Germany to meet him and maintained a correspondence with him ramir was also enthusiastic about the black shirts the Nazi party of Great Britain in his papers as for Beaver Brook’s Daily Express under the August 1938 headline the wandering jew he published The Following certainly there is no room for the Jews in Britain where we have 1.8 million of our own people out of work and biting their nails but places must be found for the Jews there are plenty of uninhabited parts of the world where given a touch of Christian Spirit they may yet find Happy homes when war was declared on the 3rd of September 1939 previously fascist sympathetic newspapers made a sudden adjustment becoming fiercely jingoistic um rather than show you more newspaper headlines here are pH graphs of sculptures Heights was making at the time the tblo began reporting on the dangers from within the dangers from within being German citizens living in British Society who were suspected of being fifth columnists spies whose activities threatened British security the daily maale in particular ran a campaign of fear-mongering calling for the interment of all Germans regardless of classification by the 24th of May 1940 they ran a headline act act act do it now in capitals this was above an article of pure sensationalism which included the following in Britain you have to realize every German is an agent all of them have both the duty and the means to communicate information to Berlin during 1939 HS wrote three articles which were published in the Adelphia magazine an English literary journal that also published Pieces by George oral Dylan Thomas and DH Lawrence among many other others his essays were on the developing situation in Europe he believed that if Europe were to be united through war and destruction it would become a threat to the United States American isolationism was not an option he thought as economies were intertwined and the best course of action was for the US and Europe to work together on the 10th of October 1939 Heins had appeared before a tribunal set up by the aliens Department of the home office to classify the risk individuals might pose highrisk category a individuals were presumed Nazi sympathizers and were immediately intered category B were not intered but subject to restrictions category C were merely recorded as German but not initially subject to any restrictions Heins was given category C thanks to Joan Windam there is a vivid account of his last months before internment on the 1st of July 1940 she met him in the street near his Chelsea studio recording the encounter that evening in her journal the police had taken him to the station and questioned him but they’d let him go again he took a cigarette but his hand shook so much it broke between his fingers he took out a second and it fell in the road Heins then said to her the general opinion seems to be that I’ll be roped in soon they’re not excluding anyone sure enough the very next day on the morning of the 2nd of July 1940 the police came to his Studio at 9:00 a.m. gave him two hours to gather his things and took him away initially Heights was interned in heighten camp near Liverpool the camp was a new housing estate nearing completion with large numbers of people being intered it was urgent for authorities to find space for everyone the a of man was to provide several large camps and some internees volunteered to go to Canada with the prospects of Greater freedoms and the hope of Asylum there or in the USA it may be that Heins was such volunteer I really don’t know although people equally just found themselves being shipped overseas without any notice or agreement on their part on the 2nd of July the arandora stal was on the way to can Canada with 1,500 interes on board when it was torpedoed by a German ubo and sunk off the coast of Ireland roughly half of those on board lost their lives many of the interes rescued from the arandora sty were then to be shipped off again on the 10th of July from the Liverpool on the daera built to carry a maximum of 1,600 the daera was was to take on board 2,542 with heints one of their number there were German and Austrian C-Class interes along with 451 a class Italian fascists and German Nazis who were kept apart from the others Peter stadin and his brother Eric ended up on board as a as a result of unlucky circumstances on the initiative of Thomas man yudi Menin and Elena Roosevelt Peter who was a noted pianist was due to be released from internment but the news did not arrive in time we were picked up by the sergeant major at random he reported later without any regard to our age Fitness or professional qualifications it was pure chance that my brother and I stood in the same file and were therefore shipped together also with them was Stefan Plato who was later to become their brother-in-law After the War soldiers on the ship treated the arrival of the interes as an opportunity for self-enrichment forcibly taking anything of value suitcases were heaped up some cut open with bayonets and various items were thrown overboard morit chumsky came on board carrying a violin in a case he explained that it was precious and belonged to his son but it was roughly taken from him and thrown overboard hins for his part somehow managed to hide a signate Rin with a blue stone and years later then cast it by mistake inside a bust he was making so lost it but not um at that time the overcrowding on the daera was extreme there were some hammocks but many had to sleep on big wooden tables or on the floor there were slot buckets which were soon overflowing with urine no fresh water and the food was barely editable py herfeld native field who I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing was another of those who had not volunteered to be sent overseas but just found himself on board the daera having initially been interned at Kempton race he remembered a particularly frightening Moment On The Voyage on the second or third night of our journey we experienced a very loud crash confined below deck we had no idea what it was although we suspected it to be a torpedo the ship rocked all hell broke out people panicked and tried to get to the exits but they were locked we were later told that we had been the target of a German submarine the torpedo had failed to go off and we were saved there would have been no chance of us ever getting out of the ship had to disaster struck the internees were kept below decks for the first week or so with bulbed wire preventing them from moving about the boat from one area to another P holes were kept shut and the air was thick and Mal odorous there was only about one square yard of desk dek space per man which made it impossible to move without bumping into someone eventually the interes were allowed on deck for 30 minutes each day there were machine guns at either end of the ship pointed at them and Soldiers with bayet keep everywhere keeping them moving about a fortnight out from Liverpool word got abound that far from going to Canada they were Bound for Australia an 8-week Journey without a change of clothes or soap was not a prospect anyone re reddish during the journey heint somehow managed to have enough p paper to make some pen and ink drawings there are two surviving drawings annotated to say that they were made aboard the daero here is luu which is in a private collection in Australia and this is encounter which is now in the British museum collections I was lucky to meet the painter Claus friedberger and his wife Julie clous was near the front of the boat in the same area as Heins and recalled that the men did the best they could to keep their spirits up organizing talks on different subjects hins had some photos of his sculptures and he used these as part of a talk singing was an important way to keep up morale someone even changed the lyrics of my Bonny Lies Over the Ocean to my luggage went into the ocean hins sang unaccompanied Negro spirituals the blues caress love and excerpts from gershwin’s Opera POI and Bess back in Britain the news of the sinking of the arandora Star had raised public awareness of interes and questions followed about how the government had decided to deal with them there were only four days in Parliament between June and August of 1940 in which enemy aliens were not mentioned in a debate Mr Strauss MP said to inter these people great Fighters for democracy was contrary to Common Sense and to England’s finest traditions the change of Direction seemed to be in order internment which had started on the 25th of June was only to last 3 weeks questions about the treatment of internes and the circumstances surrounding their deportation were asked when I say it lasted 3 weeks it didn’t mean that people were released but um they I think were no longer rounded up after about that period the government blustered and was either misinformed or dishonest in some of the responses it gave as an example on the 22nd of August osbert Peak the under Secretary of State for the home Department made the following statement in Parliament as regards shipment to Australia which is the only shipment for which the home office is directly responsible there is perfectly conclusive evidence that 90% of those who went there were anxious to go there not despite a change of Direction in policy the daera itself did not change direction and continued sailing on to Australia before it arrived the commander of the escort troop in charge of the vessel Lieutenant Colonel WP Scott who was fully aware of the treatment Meed out to the interes and the property which had been stolen from them tried to undermine their credibility by writing to Australian military authorities that the German and Austrian Jews in his care can only be described as subversive Liars demanding and arrogant having realized that they were sending people to Australia who presented no threat the British government caed the Australian government to suggest that they might apply a less rigid custodial treatment to genuine refugees from Nazi oppression the Australian government cabled a reply which stated that it expected alter internees to remain interned whilst on its soil on the morning of the 6th of De of September 1940 the daa steamed into Sydney’s darling Harbor the Australian press was quick to print stories about the interes being dangerous men reporting that there were parachutists prisoners of war and hundreds who had been carrying out subversive work in England four trains were required to transport everyone who had been on board it was immediately evident that the Australian soldiers did not exhibit the hostility of their British counterparts on the daera instead being curious about the people they had been given to God there were enough that there is a story true or not that one even asked an interne to hold his rifle while he rolled a cigarette after a 19-hour train ride West from Sydney they arrived at hay M friedberger recalls being given a thick corned beef sandwich which he described as Heaven meanwhile vly field was enjoying spaghetti and macaroni which Cooks had prepared expecting the arrival of Italian risers of War there were two um compounds for prisons of War effectively at hay h was in Camp 7 Mars 25 this is a form we’re looking at which Heights completed to say that he did not did not want his whereabouts communicated to the German authorities Hut 25 was the same Hut as occupied by Hine heckroth with whom he formed a friendship which was to endure following their return to the UK heckroth was a set and costume design who had worked with the German national ballet and at ginor following their return to the UK heckroth was to go on to work with a filmmakers pow and presburger here we see him with a model for the set for the film The Red Shoes and this is one of his studies for the red shoes from 1946 which he in fact gave to heints uh Camp 7 theater was founded by Simon Hawk bger also from H 25 2 months after their arrival in Australia they produced used to play with music called Hey fever the stage curtain was designed by Hine heckroth and Claus friedberger a handwritten program was produced by hwgo hin listed as kman was part of the entertainment in March 1941 he also took part in a show without a name singing folk songs as for his sculpture clearly all the materials and tools he was used to were not available to Heinen hay but he managed to make some wood carvings in the local dark red gumwood which are now assumed to be lost though a drawing in the British museum collection gives an idea of the kind of thing he may have created Claus friedberger told me he remembered a lens Grinder from Berlin called mayor in the camp one day Claus was present when mayor was walking past Heights who was carving a sculpture mayor commented Riley doesn’t it fit in the stove yet clous considered this a good example of dry Berlin humor CL friedberger here we see him was only 18 when he was at hay and just starting to make his way in life HS was a practicing artist in his 30s who CLA found somewhat forbidding with long dark hair though he was impressive in the younger Man’s eyes clae described him as a bit distant absorbed in his thoughts it seemed improbable to CLA that a man like heights would sing but he said he did this very well CL described hin hross as very different to Hines a big outgoing noisy man and a born teacher he gave drawing classes that CLA participated in the interes were notable for their organization and efforts in setting up trainings in many different subjects politics philosophy art sculpture anthropology chemistry poetry film making literature and Mathematics were all on offer even Atomic research astronomy and theology the busiest classes were in languages which included many European languages as well as Chinese Japanese Latin and classical and modern Greek hins almost certainly did his best to teach sculpture though one can only imagine that it would have been wood carving and perhaps some clay modeling but otherwise a theoretical exercise hints made surrealist drawings in hay and six of these all from December 1940 have survived Sur realism was very much the Z of the time and Claus and others produced Works influenced by the movement the titles and subjects of hein’s drawing speak volumes of the State of Mind of interes we’re looking at the long road back which has surreal figures in the landscape with cones or spikes and a backdrop of um he likee objects almost somewhat reminiscent of ships his Monument of an ancient civilization seems to contain an obscured message as there some writing which has been largely ined over by the dark area to to the left of center M gave this drawing in the 1950s to his friend the painter prella kluf L to my mind expresses the constriction of internment in a surreal form the LV being injected are of unknown potential facing an uncertain future a currency was issued in Camp 7 designed by George teler in 2 Shillings 1 shilling and six denominations where here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here may be indistinctly read in the bar wire border surrounding Kangaroos and other motifs most highly paid in this currency were the least desirable jobs latrine cleaners earned five Shillings a week pitching workers two Shillings waiters one shilling the camp spokesman Librarians and teachers were all unpaid a Sydney newspaper published A reproduction of a note which attracted the attention of the law it was concern it was too like real currency and its use was a breach of common Commonwealth currency legislation so it was duy withdrawn each Camp also published magazines in Camp 8 the camp news was predominantly in German writers with a generally socialist Outlook supported German resistance in the other Germany the magazine reported on the activities of the camp including a December performance of gerta’s f in its original version led by Max Mayer Who also composed a near a mass meanwhile in Camp 7 the boomerang magazine was predominantly in English a leading article entitled our future included the following passage in order to succeed against tremendous odds we shall have to break away from our German trained mentality pair off all that is too ostensibly Continental in our behavior and adopt the English or American outlook on life The Pianist Peter stadin was also in Camp 7 unsurprisingly there was at first no piano for him to play that he was lucky to be well enough known for the camp Commander to allow him to leave the camp accompanied by a guard to play a church organ in early 1941 a rental piano was provided in the camp and stadlin was able to practice and use it for concerts and recital letters and representations to Authority was were written by by the internees but for some months there were significant obstacles due to the lack of money for postage and writing material in December interes were issued with official ruled n Note Paper 22 lines long and had to restrict themselves to this letters were also stamped prisoners of War Eric stadlin peterlin’s brother wrote you cannot imagine how depressed the men are about this measure the Injustice of being labeled prisoners of War enemies rather than refugees was only progressively understood and addressed by authorities the forms in use were prepared for prisoners of War but they were stamped or written over to show that they were being used for internees eventually a number of statements detailing mistreatment while s daera was also prepared by a legal department formed by the attorneys of Camp 7 for presentation to the authorities Eric stadin was one of those preparing detailed reports on the situation of different groups letters were also written to those who it was hoped might make representations on behalf of the internes in Britain Hans rosenbluth the father of the broadcaster Nick Ross was Appo appointed secretary representing Camp 7 and he was also kept busy with corresponden as head of the camp post office one letter was sent by Justin Steinfeld who was in Camp Hut 25 with heints to The Poets essayists and novelists Association in Lon asking that they intercede on behalf of the interes he wrote as follows here in Australia many authorities and possibly the whole of public opinion do not believe that we are refugees from Nazi oppression but consider us to be highly dangerous hostile and evil men as otherwise we would should never have been sent to this camp in Australia it is impossible for me to know each single man of those in turned here but I know definitely that we are all refugees from Nazi oppression that we are all friends of the British Nations that we all stand in loyalty to the British government it is a grave disaster that so great a misunderstanding should be prevalent in this matter I beg you to accept my word of Honor that with all this I am expressing the truth there was such a volume of Correspondence around internment being processed by authorities back in the UK that osbert Peak was to say in Parliament that the release of those who fall within the categories this is speaking of eligibility for release would be greatly accelerated if correspondence could be somewhat diminished representations especially from those back in Britain did have an impact though and major Julian Leighton a British government Envoy was duly dispatched in January 1941 to review the status of internees in Australia I’ll return to three drawings by Heights at this point a ro route to release was to volunteer to join the Army Pioneer Corp which was primarily used for engineering and support tasks Peter stradlin expressed the concern of many internees in a letter to the Society of Friends I sincerely hope that no pressure will be brought to bear on refugees here to join the Pioneer Corp as their only means of getting released despite this when he arrived major Leighton made it clear that joining the pioneers was the best chance of securing a quick release hints did not volunteer for the Pioneer core instead he was assessed under category 19 which was for people who could be shown to have been publicly and prominently anti-nazi and friendly to the Allied cause he was fortunate in that he had published articles in the Adelphia magazine which were clearly against Nazi Germany this combined with supportive statements notably from Herbert Reed meant that he was classified as eligible for special release by the category 19 committee on the 26th of March when they met in London the special release suggests he did not entirely meet the criteria but that the committee were nevertheless satisfied that he should be released probably thanks to testimonies they had received this drawing by the way is dedicated to Roland Penrose hins left Australia on the 4th of June 1941 aboard the thost the second Shi to depart carrying initially small numbers of internes back to the UK one of the 57 others returning with him on the ship was Hine heckroth no longer were they treated as prisoners instead mixing freely with the crew and joining with them in talks and performances one such was south sea sapper serenade the program for this shows heints gave a recitation and was also responsible for a piece called doubtful ditties Illustrated sketches along with hin heckroth the theocles arrived back at the Port of Liverpool on the 7th of August 1941 stepping onto the key HS was once again a free man Churchill was later described the daira episode as a deplorable and regrettable mistake back in London hints worked for the BBC initially writing on current affairs for programs such as radio news real and later on art sadly very little survives of this material shellac discs were used for recording and were melted to erase them so they might be reused my parents met before the second world war but did not marry until 1948 at some point before then while the war was still raging my mother dhany G who was a balet dancer with the Bal romber went round to seah heints who had shut himself away in his Studio he had not been out for some days and she found him very depressed she discovered the reason to be that he had learned from working at the BBC about the Nazi concentration camps I’m not sure if he ever knew that two of his aunts were killed at Arch schwitz what he surely did know was that his father was killed in the Allied firebombing of Hamburg Sue Everett in her book not wanted about her father-in-law and a boy Lutz akbal wrote this separation trauma can impel the sufferer to both withdraw from close relationships and seek them desperately erecting barriers against the pain of loss and separation hins was engaging yet difficult intellectually inquiring and Restless he was highly gregarious and needed to be around people yet he was also something of a loner holding a part of himself back he would not dwell on the past only using it as a source of stories he lived in the present looking to the Future and strongly believed that good art should be timeless after the war hins became a sculpture tutor at the Royal College of Art under Frank Dobson and took part in a range of exhibitions including sculpture in the home the baty park exhibitions and the Festival of Britain hin though was not one to choose a comfortable existence he needed to feed his thirst for experience for intellectual and Creative Discovery shortly after moving again to France in 1953 he wrote A Letter to Ezra pound about his decision to leave England he wrote I just couldn’t stand the slow shity of it all the safety of it all the sensibleness of it all so I kicked it in the teeth the discovery of the prehistoric cave of Las go and the remarkable art it contained had drawn heints back to the Doone for a few years he took students from the Royal College of Art to visit the cave from 1948 my parents had a summer house near the village of San Leo when they moved to live in France fully they found another house on a hillside overlooking the VZ river valley where there was a spring providing water a barn for a studio land for goats chickens and a large vegetable garden and a fantastic view over the river the other side of which there’s a prehistoric site of L Madan which has lent its name to about 5,000 years of human prehistory 17,000 to 12,000 years ago prehistoric art fascinated and inspired Heins and he had soon befriended prehistorians including halam movius a Harvard Professor who had a dig 5 kilometers away in lizy Z and became my godfather and the ABI who was a particular Authority in prehistoric art in 1964 when I was 5 years old we moved back to the UK as heints had been appointed head of Fine Art at win the School of Art hins was a challenging teacher to the point that he could be easily taken to be antagonistic for those who engaged with him however he was hugely influential hints himself enjoyed the spirit of the 60s and the experimentation with new materials and forms making many works that were like anything he had done before hins did not believe in absolute or ultimate work seeing instead an opportunity for Creative exploration neither did he believe art to be inherently elitist taking very public issue with Herbert Reed on this point in an article published in architectural design and in the process I have to say likely writing himself out of Reed’s history of modern sculpture ultimately by the time of his re in 1973 he returned to sculpting Stone especially he was fond of white kurara marble much favored Through the Ages by sculptors particularly concentrating on the abstracted human form asked for a common theme in his work he would say it was concerned with man in nature and nature in man commentary on individual Works was not something that Heins indulged in I like it or I don’t like it was response enough Ezra pound’s advice to never explain what you have stated clearly stuck with him the subtitle of this talk was the stairway artist I’m of course partial but I think in some sense um Heins has gone under the radar he moved countries many times tried new Styles techniques and materials and it made it harder to identify his work and he was not a dep at playing the Art Market or a great self- publicist I’m sure he’s far from alone in this but I’m certainly grateful to the opportunity to present his works I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about him and um seeing what I’ve shown you thank you so much Ian that was um a very uh compact compact story you told with so many so many questions I invite everyone who listened um to please post your questions in the Q&A or the chat function um we have another 10 to 15 minutes to um yeah to ask questions um I think I’d start with um with a with a question um you describe the situation in Australia in the internment camp as um um as being very creative in many ways um there seemed to be seem to have been a lot of um a lot of artists writers who um yeah got together to bring performances to to teach um and it sounds like a very um very intellectual atmosphere that was that the the intern were trying to create um despite the C the outer circumstances um I think that’s the case I mean it was a kind of University that they set up in the camps and um some people um described it as you know one of the most formative periods of their lives and that really almost appreciate being in which sounds kind of crazy but particularly the younger men I think benefited from uh the wealth of knowledge and experience that all of these people around them had accumulated over the years and were prepared to share I think it was much more difficult for the older people yeah yeah that makes a lot of sense do you do you think your father was influenced by by this time in terms of his friendships in terms of his understanding of the art that he would create um well certainly he must have been influenced by it and I’m sure it contributed to the kind of person that he was um interestingly I had heard that he was in Australia before he died I mean I knew that it was something a place he’d been but I had no idea under what circumstances he hadn’t told me anything whatsoever about it um unfortunate in finding a lot of information about the daa because it was the only ship that went from um the UK to Australia during the war and it had so many Extraordinary People on it it’s very very well documented particularly in Australia um in fact I should mention there’s a da.org do.uk website um set up by an association over here which I’m a part of um which itself organizes some talks so if that’s a period of history that particularly interests anyone um do go to that website da.org have a little look what’s there which is links to other things mainly but um a little bit on its own and some previous material um and you can sign up and take part in future talks a bit like this one to do with that sort of episode um from a variety of people who know a lot more about it than I do um although I’ve done quite a lot of research now so know a fair bit yeah um so Diane um is asking is there a museum or Gallery which exhibits a collection of his work and I have to say that I just posted uh the uh um website that you created of of your father’s work which is Chuck full of information and uh letters poems and and his artwork of course um but yeah what what you yeah there is no sort of single central location where you can sort of turn up and see a lot of hangis work um like there might be for branzi or someone but his work is scattered it’s very very scattered to the point that uh quite a lot of the early things from um well certainly from America but also from Italy I don’t know where they are I have photographs of quite a lot but you know behind us here behind me rather these pieces um I think I know where this little one is but I don’t know where the other two are and I don’t know where the is and actually the the one over on the this side here was a Califon of new directions Publishing House in New York for many many years um thanks to the friendship was James Lan who started new directions but um artworks to go back the question yes they’re scattered around and because he’s one of these artists who has uh rather gone under the radar they’re stowed away in um The Archives often so the Tate have something but you know I don’t know when they last out uh or no some request that’s to do with the Tate certainly has something the he withth Gallery in Wakefield in the UK have a piece which I only saw for the first time when it was wheeled out um as part of an exhibition that traveled to Barcelona so I saw it in Barcelona and it was fascinating for me because it’s um it was to do with surrealism and Lee Miller was the the exhibition so it was people that she knew and um she knew Heins as well as many others so it was fascinating for me to see this in the flesh as it were for a sculpture because it was from the time that he was doing surrealist inspired work so it’s very much a piece that changes as you move around it it’s got that real three-dimensional quality that obviously sculptures have but one that is also exploited for surrealist ends in this case so you know you need to see the actual thing to kind of understand that and that’s the only piece that I’ve seen from that era so far um and most of the other pieces I’m not sure where they are um but yeah there are there are Works in different countries different collections um and Scattered I still have quite a few myself in fact was recently um thanks to great deal of sport and help from others but it wasn’t just me there was an exhibition in France of his Works um to do with the period that he was moved to France and lived there for a while which was based upon that I still have in the studio but oh yeah Carolyn is is writing that her father was interned in the aisle of men uh totally traumatized by it and uh uh says writes that there that there were also lots of lectures there um and Wesley is asking why were people sent so far away to Australia or rather than much closer and um why the extreme paranoia toward all German speaking Nationals oh well why the paranoia look at the world today um and ask the same question I would suggest perhaps in sight is from circumstances that we hope don’t degrade to that extent but anyway um that people are always paranoid aren’t they particularly when they attribute um problems to minorities and to the other and when this is encouraged through the media so there are plenty of lessons from the past um that are all too sadly applicable constantly and still very much today um why Australia it was a British whatever it was I mean it had that relationship with Britain and um like Canada was prepared to accept some um internees when they were running out space on the is of man basically I mean the is of man had reached capacity that was the major um location in the UK because places like kton R course and heighton camp and so on were temporary staging points since my understanding um but they had to find places to send people but it is interesting that they only sent this one trip to Australia yeah crazy yeah um so Monica is is asking can you tell us more about your visual sources so you you know yes uh visual sources the pictures of my father’s work to a very large extent uh photographs that he had or from an early album that um is now in the Henry Moore Institute collection in leads um so taken from that he was not a good archist documentary things collector of stuff you know there’s so much correspondence that he would have had that he would have just chucked away so what I found I’ve been piecing together from sort of the other side of the correspondence from the people that he was in touch with um not from his own particularly um yeah I what else to say on that not quite sure visual sources the visual sources for uh um other artists work uh largely Australian collection based and I have you know been in touch with all sorts of people to check that it was okay to use it presentations and that kind of stuff I think I’ve got all the clearances I certainly hope so yeah so why did um your father choose hangus as a surname I wish I knew it’d be nice to know one one has the name that one has um I can tell you I was just telling Monica Before the session started as to how he acquired it rather than why um the how is K Sage um the surrealist artist who at the time was the princess of sanino because she was married to the prince of San falino living in rapalo in Italy um befriended my father and he was looking for a name to work under he’d been signing his works with a sort of Chinese idiogram because he didn’t want to use gluc um and one evening on the beach in rapalo so goes the story they came up with hangis and which once they decided on it she took a bottle of wine and kned him on the shoulder with it and said arise hangis and from then forth he worked under the name hangis so when he’s Australia he was known as henis despite the fact he only changed his name by deed pole much later that the origins the why they came up with this I wish I knew I like the story though you know it’s a good story um so um barara is fascinated regarding by the corres his correspondence with Ezra pound um giving and the relationship overall giving his um violent anti-Semitism can you talk about this bit well I only know a limited amount um most of what I know is in this talk so you’ve heard really um clearly pound was a strange man let’s say at the very very least you have only to look at the kantos um he’s a strange man brilliant must have been as well but a virent anti-mite but it does seem like he had this this distinction between big Jews little Jews and yet somehow couldn’t quite differentiate in depending upon who he was talking to would deal with things in different ways but no my father certainly never had a bad word about him um and yeah remembered the man who was kind to him rather than the man who went haywire on the radio yeah so I can’t really say very much more but it is intriguing isn’t it how there are people who can be so prominently anti-semitic who you know with individuals um well it’s fine but then perhaps to some extent we’re all like this you know when you have this debate about oh they’ve got to go back home or whatever but not you because you know I know you isn’t that the same almost yeah it’s very true it’s very true um and yeah you have almost everybody has their politics and ideologies and um but that doesn’t necessarily align with with individual friendships and uh Behavior so I to agree um how much do you know about your father’s relationship with orand uh Roland Penrose [Music] um well they’ have met in London obviously um he knew him and um Lee Miller indeed there’s one story where apparently they were cycling down the bz Valley this is in the do to back to the holiday I think it was at the time and happened to bump into R and Lee Miller on the banks of the V there and picnic together um I know that Roland collected some of my father’s Works indeed if you go to Farley Farm um where there’s a big collection of Lee Miller and his son and granddaughter are carrying on the works if you like and there’s a lot of particularly Lia material that’s um in exhibition on a fairly regular basis fantastic photographs fantastic that had been hidden away um and were discovered by Pony the son um in the attic and you know he also constructed the story but has been much more diligent and thorough and successful at it than I have been um and done fantastic work with it um so yeah I mean they they clearly knew each other met up on various occasions what else I don’t know a great deal more about it just as I don’t about all sorts of other people who I can see from Daris or from other records that he knew Epstein um you know all sorts of people right right so yeah um okay I think um two two things I want to mention briefly Monica boomen who’s part of this uh uh of the audience and I would like to mention her Insider Outsider YouTube channel which has a lot of interviews with other internes uh because she focuses on on uh artists who uh immigrated to um to England um or fled to England um so that’s definitely worth exploring and I would like to to direct my last question to you um uh someone asked says I’m so struck by how much knowledge you have to uh to accumulate about your father’s experiences during the war belatedly and from other sources other than your father can you speak a bit about this journey where and when you started and what was most helpful to you um that’s a yes interesting um I started probably in the early 2000s 200 4 maybe 3 4 because 2006 was the centinary of my father’s birth and I kind of woke up a little bit and thought okay really ought to have some sort of exhibition or do something and that was when um Jane England who had a gallery that uh was interested and put on an exhibition about him said well yeah but okay but tell me about him and I looked rather blankly at her and didn’t have a great deal to say so um I went off and interviewed a lot of people who I knew he’d known and sort of got more of an Insight just from talking to his friends and people that he’d known I followed up um where I could with archives and um other sources I was very lucky sometimes you know I was driving across London one day on my way to work and listening to woman’s um uh woman’s hour book of the week and there was a description of a young man called geart who was nervous about the prospect of being intered and I kind of went oh that must have been my father’s State of Mind a bit and this was Joan Windham who I mentioned earlier on Joan Windham who kept these fabulous diaries that were you many years later turned into a book where rather than being um lman or hangis she decided to give him um geart I think she was afraid that he might maybe she didn’t know he died at that point but anyway she didn’t want to reveal who it was interestingly good half of a book that she was drawn from her Diaries Called Love lessons is about hints really and then the other half is about somebody she gave the name um is it rert to who was a friend of my mother’s at the time so rather curious but anyway because she sort of went home enthusiastically of an evening and wrote down Snippets of conversation I dare say it’s sort of slightly embellished and elaborated from her sort of you know the age she was and everything but nevertheless it’s um fantastic sort of suddenly vibrantly colored glimpse into the past that you couldn’t imagine would be possible so there are sort of those moments that you get where you sort of suddenly see what it felt like and what was going on and you can sort of imagine things there’s other things that you discover about um the past that you wonder whether people at the time knew I mean for example did I ever know that his aunts had died at aritz I don’t know but I discovered at one point that um because he clearly knew um lawence darl um and darl was hanging out with I’ve forgotten the woman’s name now but anyway somebody who actually was a cousin distant cousin like of hiners um but she was an illegitimate child of um names Escape me at the moment but anyway a man who is a composer um who worked with bre and others who was a cousin and because she was illegitimate I in part she may not have recognized sort of family names at all did they know that they were related because they were probably in the same room yeah you know there’s things like that that you sort of find out about what may have happened and you can it’s tantalizing sometimes oh definitely I can definitely say see that yes amazing so now I hope um you know I I hope that um events like this one bring out more connections uh he was for for 8 years he lived in in uh New York uh after all um so that yeah I don’t know much about that time in terms of the exhibitions there because there were a few exhibitions as well um yeah old Desa that I think that was the name anyway we do have a nushi museum here in New York uh in uh so maybe somebody is hearing about this and goes into the archives and finds uh finds information and and you also told me that um there is an exhibition in preparation about the dunera um experience well in in the similar way to sort of research going on in the background to do with Peggy guggenheim’s early years in um the gugenheim Jour Gallery in London um perhaps not similar there’s a project which may be coming together which would involve um more um artists related material being gathered from the daa time and that might involve exhibitions I mean it’s a a multi-way thing that is in the early days as yet and I’m sort of very peripherally involved with but very peripherally I hope it comes to place and I also hope of course that it uh comes to to the US but uh for now I will send a lot of links in the followup email link to the recording and um to all the sources that we we mentioned here thank you so much uh Ian for um for your fabulous talk and for your fabulous research uh about your father and your work and his life um thank you to everyone who uh listened and be well everyone Take Care thank you byebye bye