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.
To mark the centenary of the birth in Vienna of celebrated composer and much-loved teacher Joseph Horovitz, who came as a child to this country in 1938, Insiders/Outsiders is honoured to play host to a special online event to pay tribute to this versatile and highly respected figure in the British musical world.
To mark the recent publication of her new biography of Edith Tudor Hart A Woman Named Edith – the first in English – Daria Santini will illuminate the creative and investigative process behind the book.
Textile designers and manufacturers Zika (1910 – 1992) and Lida (1913 – 1983) Ascher won international acclaim for their innovative collaborations with fine artists such as Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland and Henri Matisse.
In their effort to relocate to Britain and rebuild their lives, architects fleeing Nazi-dominated Europe were supported not only by the various refugee organisations active in the country but also by their British colleagues, especially through the activities of the RIBA Refugee Committee and the Architects Refugee Fund.
Designing From Home is a new short documentary film co-directed by Harriet Atkinson and Sue Breakell and produced by Banyak Films, which explores the north London house where influential graphic designer FHK Henrion (1914-1990) lived and worked for over forty years, and features interviews with his four children alongside original archive material from Henrion’s archive at the University of Brighton Design Archives.
Derry city, aka Londonderry, was one of the first places in Northern Ireland to which refugee workers from Vienna came to escape Nazi persecution.
Marian Mahler (1909-1982) was born in Wies, Austria and settled in the UK in 1937. She studied at the Vienna Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Arts and Crafts) as well as architecture, with Josef Hoffmann, from late 1928 until early 1933.
A day symposium, an exhibition and a concert