• I Had to Be Present: Oto Bihalji-Merin, art historian, editor, publisher, art critic and activist

    Virtual Event

    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.

    Free
  • In the Future of Yesterday: A Life of Stefan Zweig

    Virtual Event

    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.

    Free
  • Of Penguins, Albatrosses, Pelicans and Kings: Refugees from Nazism at Penguin Books

    Virtual Event

    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.

    Free
  • ‘The Ark’: Wedgwood and European Refugees, 1933 -1945

    Virtual Event

    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.

    Free
  • Käthe Schuftan, ‘Prophetess of Spirit’: the rediscovery of a forgotten artist

    Virtual Event

    “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.”

    Free
  • Kosher Giraffe Trilogy: A talk by Hugo Max

    Virtual Event

    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.

    Free
  • The Glyndebourne Émigrés

    Virtual Event

    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.

    Free
  • Hans Hess: The Goods have become the Gods

    Virtual Event

    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.

    Free
  • Walking Tour – Modernist Hampstead

    Forecourt outside Wagamamma 58-62 Heath Street, London, United Kingdom

    In this walking tour we’ll discover the revolutionary Modernist homes and idealistic architecture built in Hampstead in the 1930s onwards

    £12.50
  • Comrades in Art – For Peace, Democracy and Cultural Freedom

    Virtual Event

    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.

    Free
  • Activism Through Art: Edith Tudor Hart in Britain

    Virtual Event

    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.

    Free
  • The Refugee and the Survivor – a Family Story

    Virtual Event

    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.

    Free
  • Creativity & Forced Migrations

    Virtual Event

    Burcu Dogramaci & Owen Hatherley in Conversation with Monica Bohm-Duchen

    Free
  • Paul Hamlyn: Outsider, Innovator, Dealmaker

    Virtual Event

    This talk examines the career of Paul Hamlyn (né Hamburger) (1926-2001), a story of personal ambition, publishing innovation, and industry change.

    Free
  • Romek Marber (1925-2020): The Man who Vowed Never to Return

    Romek Marber is probably most famous for the design of over seventy book covers for the Penguin Crime series in the 1960s as well as for the development of the Marber grid which made the layout of Penguin cover pages consistent across titles.

    Free
  • Finding Ella Briggs: The Life and Work of an Unconventional Architect

    To mark the recent publication by Princeton University Press of a book entitled Finding Ella Briggs: The Life and Work of an Unconventional Architect, its co-editors Despina Stratigakos and Elana Shapira and one of the other contributors to the volume Barbara Penner will introduce us to the life and work of this talented Austrian-born Jewish architect, designer and writer whose influence was felt on both sides of the Atlantic.

    Free
  • The Cassirers and their Circles

    The Cassirers were a remarkable German Jewish family – highly successful in business and leaders of European culture.

    Free
  • Thames & Hudson or Danube & Spree?

    To mark the publication of her book, The Art of the Book: 75 Years of Thames & Hudson, Dr.Anna Nyburg will give a talk about the history of the internationally famous London-based publishing house founded by refugees from Nazism.

    Free