German refugee artists to Britain since 1900

Art works and archival material by an array of both celebrated and lesser-known German-born refugee artists, principally from the Ben Uri Collection. Paintings, posters, prints, drawings, cartoons, book illustrations and sculptures explore issues of identity and migration via the German refugee experience in England, supported by oral testimonies from three generations of German migrants, and displayed alongside the work of a contemporary German immigrant artist.

Featured artists include: Siegfried Solomon Alweiss (Alva), Frank Auerbach, Jack Bilbo, Martin Bloch, Dörte Bürgner (Dodo), Albrecht Dürer, Hans Feibusch, Else Fraenkel, Hilde Goldschmidt, Fred Kormis, Alfred Lomnitz (Lom), Grete Marks, Ludwig Meidner, Klaus Meyer, Erna Nonnenmacher, John Philipp, Adèle Reifenberg, Hans Schleger (Zero), Elisabeth Tomalin, Harry Weinberger, Victor Weisz (Vicky) and Erich Wolfsfeld. Following the election of Adolf Hitler to the Chancellorship of Germany in 1933 and the introduction of anti-Semitic legislation, a number of artists, including Feibusch and Meidner, were declared ‘degenerate’, and forbidden from practicing. The majority, owing either to their Jewish ethnicity or political opposition to National Socialism, made ‘forced journeys’ to England in the years 1933–39. Some, including Auerbach, Frankfurther and Weinberger came as children. Their experiences contrast with those of established artists, such as Bloch, Marks, Ludwig Meidner and Wolfsfeld, stripped of their livelihoods in Germany and attempting to re-establish their careers in a new host country, where the knowledge and appreciation of German art remained low.