The author and poet Karen Gershon, probably best known for her book We Came as Children (1966), arrived in England as the child Kate Loewenthal on a Kindertransport in December 1938.
This event is organised as part of the Fred Kormis: Sculpting the Twentieth Century event series at The Wiener Holocaust Library
Roger Lee of Parndon Mill in Harlow, who exhibited her work and knew Gerda personally, will be in conversation with Monica Bohm-Duchen, art historian and founding director of Insiders/Outsiders, to introduce us to the touching life story and artistic evolution of this still little-known woman émigré sculptor.
This event is organised as part of the Fred Kormis: Sculpting the Twentieth Century event series at The Wiener Holocaust Library
This event is organised as part of the Fred Kormis: Sculpting the Twentieth Century event series at The Wiener Holocaust Library
In this talk Dominique Fleischmann will give an overview of his father’s career in London, his use of Perspex as a sculptural medium, and focus on public commissions for World Expos and the Festival of Britain.
This talk, given by the sculptor’s daughter, Antonia Salmon who is also an artist, will explore Charlotte Mayer’s early years growing up in Prague and the impact on her life of her experience of being a child refugee when she came to the UK in 1939 at the age of ten.
Oto Bihalji-Merin (1904-1993) was a Yugoslav-Jewish art historian, editor, publisher, art critic and activist whose creative life fused multiple languages, identities and cultures in response to the historical and political contexts of the 20th century and whose legacy lies in his advocacy for art that transcends formal training, emphasizing human creativity and imagination.
Rüdiger Görner, Professor Emeritus of German with Comparative Literature at Queen Mary University of London, will be in conversation with writer and critic David Herman about his latest book, In the Future of Yesterday: A Life of Stefan Zweig.
To mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of Penguin Books, Dr. Anna Nyburg, author of Émigrés: The Transformation of Art Publishing in Britain (Phaidon, 2014), will pay tribute to the disproportionately large number of former refugees from Nazi Europe who contributed to the company’s extraordinary success.
As a result of exile from their homelands, Jewish refugee educators founded many schools in the UK. The schools were mostly boarding schools based on the principle of ‘Landerziehungsheime’ – ‘countryside educational homes.’
An émigré who moved to the UK with his family at the age of seven from Nazi Germany, Paul Hamlyn (né Hamburger,1926-2001) was an innovative publisher who re-engineered the publishing model and systemised creativity.
To mark the recent publication by Bloomsbury of his book Rogues and Scholars: Boom and Bust in the London Art Market, 1945–2000: James Stourton: Apollo, James Stourton will discuss his chosen topic.
Between 1933-1945, thousands of European refugees escaping Nazi persecution sought refuge in Britain. Due to an apathetic British Government, assistance for refugees was the responsibility of individuals, organisations, and businesses, such as Wedgwood.
In 1939, Leo and Greta Neumann established the fashion business ‘Rima Model Gowns’ at 8 St. George Street, Hannover Square, London.
“She believed in creative energy . . . She has lived, and always with her art and her great energy tried to provoke everybody else to live, in the light of freedom, in the light of spirit; and if, therefore, we could have a way of remembering her, let us always remember her as a prophetess of spirit and of freedom. That is all that she would want from us.”
In his latest publication Austrian-British multidisciplinary artist Hugo Max explores the internment of his great-grandfather as an ‘enemy alien’ on the Isle of Man during the Second World War.
In its first years of existence, the Glyndebourne Festival Opera set out to internationalize English opera culture, both by attracting international artists and leading proponents of a new concept of opera production and by giving émigrés the chance to further hone skills developed in Central Europe and beyond.
To mark the recent publication by the Manifesto Press of Volume 3 of Hans Hess: Selected Writings, Dr. Lucy Burke, Academic Director of the new Hans Hess Foundation, will introduce us to an important but hitherto under-examined art historian, curator and left-wing cultural activist.
In the autumn of 1933 a group of twenty-something largely unknown artists and designers felt impelled to begin organising against the threat of fascism and war. They determined to create a London-based artists’ auxiliary in support of progressive causes.
Sociologist Larry Ray, one of the contributors to the anthology Poverty for Sale: Edith Tudor Hart in Britain, recently published by MuseumsEtc, will give a talk about the life and work of photographer and committed communist Edith Tudor Hart.
This illustrated presentation by Michael Lewis weaves together the story of his parents, of his father, a refugee from Nazi persecution and his mother, a Holocaust survivor. It draws on her memoir, A Time to Speak (1992) and Michael’s own book, Flight from Prague – the Making of a Refugee (2025), which for the first time tells his father’s story.
Burcu Dogramaci & Owen Hatherley in Conversation with Monica Bohm-Duchen
This talk examines the career of Paul Hamlyn (né Hamburger) (1926-2001), a story of personal ambition, publishing innovation, and industry change.