Insiders/Outsiders: Refugees From Nazi Europe And Their Contribution To British Visual Culture

Wednesday 1st July 2020

Monica Bohm-Duchen

Despite the traumatic nature of their dislocation and the obstacles they often encountered on arrival in the UK, those who fled here from Nazi-dominated Europe in the 1930s and 1940s made a deep, pervasive and long-lasting contribution to British culture. Focussing on the visual arts, this new lecture will examine the nature of this contribution, embracing not only familiar names such as Gombrich, Kokoschka, Moholy-Nagy, Schwitters and Heartfield, but also lesser-known figures such as Albert Reuss, Josef Herman and Marie-Louise von Motesiczky.

At a time when the issue of immigration is much debated, this lecture serves as a reminder of the importance of cultural cross-fertilisation and of the deep, long-lasting and wide-ranging contribution that refugees make to British life.

Monica is an independent London-based writer and an Associate Lecturer at Birkbeck College since 2005.  She has lectured for institutions such as Tate, the National Gallery, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Open University, Sotheby’s Institute of Art and the Courtauld Institute of Art.  She is the initiator and Creative Director of the Insiders/ Outsiders arts festival, and as such she hosted a whole series of online events earlier this month to mark National Refugees’ Week. Among her many publications, her book “Art and the Second World War” was nominated for the William M. B. Berger Prize for Art History and the National Award for Arts Writing, USA.

This lecture was streamed online at 11:00am on Wednesday 1st July 2020.
Members received an invitation by email to join the lecture.