Antonin Heythum (1901-1954) was a scenographer, graphic designer, architect, and furniture designer who worked primarily in New York and Central Europe.
He was born in Most, Austria-Hungary, then the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. In 1924 he studied architecture, civil engineering, and ship construction at the Czech Technical University in Prague. He joined the Devětsil art association and participated in the beginning of the Liberated Theater where he worked as a scenographer from 1924-1925. In 1932 he worked with Evžen Linhart to design a house in Na Ostrohu in a colony of houses in Osada Baba, Prague.
Heythum participated in many exhibition installations. In 1933 in Prague, he created a national glass exhibition and he worked on pavilions at the World Exhibition in Brussels. In 1938 he participated in the New York World's Fair and San Francisco Bay expositions and after the beginning of World War Two remained in the United States where he wrote a book with his wife on exhibition management titled Design for Use (1944). Heythum also founded the Industrial Design Department at the California Institute of Technology and was the head of Industrial Design at Syracuse University from 1946 to his death. He also taught at Columbia University and was a consultant for the firm of Norman Bel Geddes.
Heythum died on January 10, 1954 in the town of Rottach in southern Bavaria.