John Heartfield was born Helmut Herzfeld on June 19, 1891 in Berlin-Schmargendorf, Germany to Franz Herzfeld, a socialist writer and Alice née Stolzenburg, a textile worker and political activist. Eight years later in 1899, Helmut, his brother Wieland, and his sisters Lotte and Hertha were abandoned by their parents as they fled Germany to escape a prison sentence for blasphemy. For a while, the four children resided with an uncle in the small town of Aigen before each was sent out to various other guardians, Helmut landing in a monastery.
However, young Helmut continued his education having already shown a gift for painting. In 1908 he studied in Munich at the Köngliche-Bayerische Kunstgewerbeschule (Royal Bavarian Arts and Crafts School). It was here that he encountered commercial designers Albert Weisgerber and Ludwig Hohlwein. The two influenced Herzfeld greatly.
Once 1912 came around Herzfeld was working as a commercial artist himself. He was employed designing book jackets, ironically for The Selected Works of Franz Held, his estranged father.
In 1913, he moved to Berlin where he studied under Ernst Neumann at the Kunst-und Handwerkerschule [Arts and Crafts School].
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