Brave New Visions shows how in bleak post-war London, a group of émigrés who had found sanctuary in Britain in the 1930s re-made their lives and introduced avant-garde European and British artists such as Naum Gabo, Oskar Kokoschka, Kurt Schwitters, Graham Sutherland and Ben Nicholson to the broader public.
The exhibition shines a spotlight on a very different Europe 80 years ago in the lead up to, and the start of, WW2. It features the forced journeys of many of central Europe’s most distinguished and pioneering artists, who fled tyranny in search of artistic and personal freedoms.
Elly Miller, daughter of Béla Horovitz, co-founder of the Phaidon Press, and Constance Kaine, daughter of Walter Neurath, co-founder of Thames & Hudson, will be in conversation with Anna Nyburg, who has researched the histories of both publishing houses.
Marie Neurath – an émigré graphic designer and author, led a team at the Isotype Institute that produced over 80 illustrated children’s books from 1944-1971. The pioneering collaboration between researchers, artists and writers produced infographics and illustrated diagrams to explain scientific concepts.
Richard Aronowitz will illustrate the lengthy process of provenance research at Sotheby’s, Shauna Isaac will discuss her family’s landmark restitution victory – United States vs Portrait of Wally, René Gimpel will shed light on a current case involving his family, and Abby Brindley will offer a legal view.
Amanda Gray, Partner, and Jon Sharples, Associate, both of Art Law, Mishcon de Reya LLP and Tom Christopherson, former European General Counsel at Sotheby’s, Legal Consultant at Bonhams, and Head of Art and Law Studies at Sotheby’s Institute of Art and Gilane Tawadros from DACS, will discuss how those entering the art market can best navigate this world – from the very start of their careers to ensuring their standing in the longer term.
Richard ‘Dick’ Ellis, former head of New Scotland Yard’s Art Squad, will unravel the intricacies in finding and recovering stolen art. He will reveal how his leads include an international network of both law enforcement officials and criminals. Dick has solved several high profile cases including the theft of Edvard Munch’s The Scream from Norway’s National Gallery, and Audubon’s Birds of America lifted from the State Library in St. Petersburg.
In the first half of the 20th century Hampstead was home to some of the era’s most pioneering artists. We will walk in the footsteps of the Slade School artists. In Downshire Hill we learn of the artistic Carline family and will also discuss the role that Roland Penrose, Margaret Gardiner and Fred and Diana Uhlman played in the art world in the years leading up to, and during, the Second World War. We walk to Belsize Park to learn of the Modernists including Henry Moore, Piet Mondrian and Barbara Hepworth whom Herbert Read described as living as a “nest of gentle artists” and conclude with the refugee designers who stayed at the Isokon flats.
Every year The Laban Guild holds a Summer School which explores the work of modern dance pioneer Rudolf Laban in a contemporary context. The work of Laban, who took refuge in the UK from Germany in 1938, gained great popularity in dance and physical education and still plays a key role in actor training.
Martyrs’ Gallery is presenting an exhibition of words and images that depicts and celebrates Hans Feibusch’s allegorical mural Pilgrim’s Progress.
Martyrs’ Gallery is presenting an exhibition of words and images that depicts and celebrates Hans Feibusch’s allegorical mural Pilgrim’s Progress.
As part of CAMPLE LINE’s Summer 2019 Edition, Florian Kaplick will perform Kurt Schwitters’ sound poem Ursonate, a vocal piece consisting of four movements, an overture and finale. Schwitters began writing Ursonate in 1922 and first performed it in 1925 before publishing it in 1932 as ‘Sonate in Urlauten’ (Sonata in Primordial Sounds).
Explore the memories of the Freud family in Hampstead in this walk led by Blue Badge Guide Rachel Kolsky.
A new mobile exhibition about the Kitchener camp rescue of Jewish refugees to Britain in 1939
Dr. Agnes Grunwald-Spier MBE, a holocaust survivor, reveals the remarkable story of ceramicist and artist Grete Marks, who fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
Dr Jochen Hung gives a critical introduction to the history of Weimar Republic and the era that shaped Simon and her sitters.
In response to the positive reception the exhibition The Mad Silkman. Zika & Lida Ascher: Textiles and Fashion has enjoyed in the Czech Republic and abroad, among scholars and the general public alike, the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague has decided to host an international conference.
The Italian Cultural Institute celebrates Germano Facetti: a Nazi labour camp survivor who changed the face of publishing in Britain.
As the abundance of wall plaques in the area demonstrates, visual artists have been drawn to the physical and cultural attractions of Hampstead since the late eighteenth century. This London day, however, concentrates on artistic life in Hampstead in the 1930s, the period in which it occupied a unique place in the story of British art and architecture.
Taking Gerty Simon’s striking image (c. 1929) of the sculptor Renée Sintenis as a starting point, this talk will explore Simon’s photographs as part of a wider culture of the artistic face and body in Weimar modernity.
20:20 is a multimedia, touring arts and heritage project that casts a long lens over the personal memories of refugee families who arrived in the UK from 1999 onwards from Kosovo and other major global conflicts.
Käthe Schuftan was a Jewish artist who escaped from Berlin in June 1939. Her work was linked with both Käthe Kollwitz and the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement, including Otto Dix and George Grosz.
Selected dates from September to April
The Ken Stradling Collection is very pleased to be taking part in the international celebrations marking the centenary of the Bauhaus.
This one-day symposium will examine the contribution of refugee dancers from Nazi Europe and their contribution to British Culture.