Jozef Hecht was born in Lodz, Poland and studied at the Art Academy of Krakow 1909-1914. He spent the war years, 1914-19, in Norway and moved to Paris in 1920 and attended the Academie des Beaux-Arts winning prizes there. Whilst in Paris he taught burin-engraving to students including William Stanley Hayter and Dolf Rieser among others. In 1927 he was a founder member of “Atelier 17” and in 1929 founder member of La Jeune Gravure Contemporaine. He exhibited in France and the U.S.A.with the Academie Des Beaux- Arts. and also illustrated books and issued portfolios of engravings mainly of animal subjects.