User:OttawaAC/Robert Heinz

Robert Heitz
Marie Charles Robert Heitz, was born in Saverne in Alsace-Lorraine during the Reichsland period on August 3, 1895, and died at Strasbourg on November 4, 1984. He was an administrator, politician, writer, art critic, painter and member of the French resistance. An intelligent observer of his era, he left two volumes of memoirs and reflections, Souvenirs de jadis et de naguère (in English: "Memories of the Once and Past") and Vues cavalières (in English, "Cavalier Views"), which Georges Foessel, former archivist of Strasbourg and esteemed historian, assesses as "indispensible sources for the history of 20th century Alsace".

Biography
He completed secondary school at the Saverne College, then at Saint-Étienne College in Strasbourg and in 1913 began law studies at Strasbourg University.

First World War
He was drafted into the German army in 1915, but a providential scarlet fever infection was serious enough to send him to the military hospital of Strasbourg-Neudorf directed by Professor Tabora. Thanks to common acquaintances, he took him under his protection and, after his recovery, managed to keep him there, by using unorthodox means when his case came up for review by the hospital board. He spent the entire duration of the war at the military hospital of Neudorf.

On November 9, 1918 his comrades elected him president of the Arbeiter und Soldatenrat of the hospital, when he had already been demobilized by his own commander and had turned in his military effects. The fact of his French sympathies played no role and only attended two or three sessions of the Soviet central that left him, he said, "in an atmosphere stinking of poor tobacco and alcohol". He was foremost preoccupied with directing the liquidation of the hospital: infected patients were threatening to flee since they feared being taken prisoner. Robert Heitz succeeded in having them repatriated to Germany.

Concerning the events of November 1918, Robert Heitz said this a half-century later, under the title "Une immense confusion" (in English: "An Immense Confusion") :

"The weeks preceding the peace of November 22, 1918 were marked by an intense confusion of movements of crowds, processions, protests, looting, brawls, gunfire, but also secret intrigues, of haggling, of pretense and duplicity, a tangled skein whose thread is difficult to unwind. Especially since none of the major players in the local tragi-comedy which followed the general massacre has left a complete account of events."

Between two wars
He was close to the May Group, formed in 1919 by the Alsacian painters Jacques Gachot, Balthasar Haug, Edouard Hirth, Martin Hubrecht, Lucien Hueber, Louis-Philippe Kamm, Lisa Krugell, Charles Schenckbecher, Simon-Lévy, and Paul Welsch; he founded or participated in other equally transitory groups (the Group of 4 in 1924 which became Group of 5 in 1925) and La Barque Group, hosted by Daniel Schoen, which would exhibit in Paris at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in 1930.

In 1924 he joined the Action française in the Colmar section where his brother was a lawyer.

Second World War
During the Second World War Robert Heitz worked from Octobre 1941 for Free France and was a member of the resistance network Bareiss. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1942 at Strasbourg for treason and espionage and deported from September 1942 to April 1945, sentenced to death by the Reichskriegsgericht on March 10, 1943, then pardoned on 15 August 1943, thanks to the intervention of certain citizens of Nancy and German friends }}  He was freed in April 1945.

He spent time successively in the prisons of Kehl, Strasbourg, Bruchsal and Ludwigsburg.

After the war
In 1945 he was president of the Bas-Rhin section of the Association des Internés et Déportés Politiques d’Alsace (AIDPA), and was also president of the Artistes Indépendants d'Alsace (AIDA).

After the war, he began work in the service of the Assurances sociales d'Alsace-Lorraine, beginning a brilliant career that led him to the executive of the Caisse régionale d'assurance vieillesse, where he worked from 1945 until March 31, 1962. His responsibilities, which he met conscientiously, allowed him in his own eyes to be his own patron and he was able to devote himself to the arts, particularly to painting and literature, which corresponded with his true personality.

He was deputy mayor of Strasbourg several times, he was assistant to Charles Frey and to Pierre Pflimlin upon the death of his brother Fernand Heitz (1891-1963), lawyer and President of the Bar of Colmar, in 1963. Since 1995 a square, inaugurated by Catherine Trautmann, bears his name. At Wolfisheim, a street also bears his name. The Robert Heitz Gallery, a wing of the Palais Rohan, Strasbourg constitutes the city gallery.

Principal works
Works at the Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art :
 * Cathédrale, illustration of a poem by R. Redslob, 1918, drawing
 * Rue avec réverbère, 1921, oil on canvas
 * Château d'Ottrot en hiver, 1922, oil on canvas
 * Portrait de Robert Forrer, 1926, drawing
 * La Bugatti, 1928, oil on canvas (Inv. : 10809)
 * Autoportrait, 1928, oil on canvas (Inv. : 55.974.0.292)
 * Dialogue, 1929, oil on canvas
 * Nocturne, 1930, oil on canvas (Inv. : 55.985.4.31)
 * Saül et David, 1933, drawing
 * Caïn, Biblical Series 1935, engraving
 * L'enfant prodigue, Biblical Series 1935, engraving
 * La Sulamite, Biblical Series 1935, engraving
 * La Terre promise, Biblical Series 1935, engraving
 * La Tristesse de Saül, Biblical Series 1935, engraving
 * Le Déluge, Biblical Series 1935, engraving
 * Le Sinaï, Biblical Series 1935, engraving
 * Le jardin Eden, Biblical Series 1935, engraving
 * Salomé, Biblical Series 1935, engraving
 * Saül et la Pythonisse d'Endor, Biblical Series 1935, engraving
 * Boxeurs, 1935, oil on canvas
 * L'Emeute , 1936, oil on canvas
 * La Naissance de Vénus, 1938, oil on canvas
 * La Poursuite , 1938, oil on canvas
 * La Tentation de Saint Antoine , 1939, oil on canvas
 * Saint Martin, 1940, oil on canvas
 * Julien l'Apostat à la bataille de Strasbourg, 1941, oil on canvas
 * La Tour d'ivoire, 1941, oil on canvas
 * Autoportrait en prison, 1943, oil on canvas
 * Place Saint-Etienne, 1946, oil on canvas
 * Le Cheval blanc , 1953, oil on canvas
 * Saint François d'Assise, 1955, drawing
 * Hommage à Richard Brunck de Freundeck, 1957, drawing
 * Copie d'après Chirico, 1965, oil on canvas
 * La Vieille Strasbourgeoise, 1967, oil on canvas
 * La Licorne, no date, oil on canvas
 * Strasbourg, no date, engraving

Exhibits

 * Sixty Years of Portraits by Alsacian Artists, Strasbourg, Maison d'Art Alsacienne à l'Ancienne Douane, February 26 - March 24, 1966
 * The T.S.F. of the Years of Madness 1919-1939, Riquewihr, Musée d'Histoire des P.T.T. d'Alsace, April 4 - November 11, 1987
 * Alsacian Realists in the Inter-War Years, Strasbourg, Musée d'Art moderne et contemporain, November 7, 2003 - January 27, 2004

Writer : publications

 * Robert Heitz, forçat 365 - A mort: souvenirs, Éditions de Minuit, 1946, 311 pages
 * Échec à l'absurde, 1946, Robert Heitz preface
 * Le maréchal Pétain, l'Alsace et la Lorraine, by Louis Cernay, preface by général Weygand and Robert Heitz
 * Un Grand Strasbourgeois, Charles Frey, Édition des Dernières nouvelles, 1956, 114 pages, Robert Heitz preface
 * Strasbourg, text by Robert Heitz and photographs by Alice Bommer, Hachette, 1961, 111 pages
 * Souvenirs de jadis et de naguère, 1963
 * Et Leclerc prit Strasbourg, 1970, Jacques Granier, preface by Robert Heitz
 * Vues cavalieres : réflexions et souvenirs, Éditions des Dernières nouvelles de Strasbourg, 1974, 263 pages, ISBN 2716500002
 * L'Alsace de 1900 à nos jours, 1979

Publications on art

 * Le Groupe de Mai : dixième anniversaire 1919-1929, Jacques Gachot, Balthasar Haug, Edouard Hirth, Martin Hubrecht, Lucien Hueber, Louis-Philippe Kamm, Lisa Krugell, Charles Schenckbecher, Simon-Lévy et Paul Welsch, La Vie en Alsace, 1929
 * Physionomie d'artiste : Paul Welsch, La Vie en Alsace, Strasbourg, 1931
 * Le Sculpteur René Hetzel, 1946
 * Le Peintre Luc Hueber, 1947
 * La sculpture en Alsace des origines à nos jours, Éditions Alsatia, 1949, 166 pages
 * Le Graveur Richard Brunck de Freundeck, 1950
 * L'Alsace: vue par les artistes, Horizons de France, 1952, 135 pages
 * Le Peintre Georges Daniel Krebs, 1967, Robert Heitz, Paul Ahnne and Antoine Fischer
 * Armand Ingelbleek : lyrisme et couleur, Robert Heitz and Paul Ahnne
 * Étapes de l'art alsacien aux 19e et 20e siècles - Peintres, sculpteurs et graveurs, Saisons d'Alsace, Strasbourg, Istra, 1973
 * Robert Heitz : Hommages et pastiches, Strasbourg : Editions de la Nuée-Bleue, 1984

Novels and short stories

 * Mon ami Hans, 1953
 * Le Douzième apôtre, 1955