Rene Halkett was a student of the Bauhaus who studied under Klee and Kandinsky. During World War I he had served his country as a soldier, but in 1936 he left Germany to seek refuge in Britain, becoming a British citizen 10 years later. After moving to Cornwall he broadcast for the German Service of the BBC, and continued to pursue an art practice based on the Bauhaus principle of form following function.

In 1967 he settled in Camelford, north Cornwall, from where he sent regular 'Letters from Cornwall' to Germany. An artist inspired by Surrealism, he remained politically active as a writer and journalist.