Innovation and Acculturation: The Émigré Art Historians and Britain

5-6 November 2019
Queen Mary, University of London - Graduate Center GC601

This conference aims to reappraise and – where appropriate – to challenge the received narrative about the history of art history in Britain.
Art History as an academic discipline in Britain is commonly regarded as a German import. Before the 1930s, British art writing was allegedly the domain of the amateur and connoisseur. This only changed radically with the influx of émigré scholars – most of them of German-Jewish descent – to Britain after 1933. These highly skilled professional art historians played a pivotal role in developing the research and teaching programmes of both the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes.
The conference’s aim is to situate the work of the German(-Jewish) émigré art historians in a wider sociology of British Academia, and the intellectual debates within and beyond art historical scholarship. The conference will seek to re-evaluate just how ‘German’ British art history became between 1920 and 1970. The timeframe allows to take into account both the British traditions of art writing before the arrival of the ‘Hitler émigrés’, and the émigré’s legacies up to the redefinition of the discipline brought about by the ‘New Art History’ of the 1970s.


Programme:

Tuesday, 5th November

14.00 Welcome and Introduction

14.15 ART HISTORY IN BRITAIN

Sam Rose (St Andrews) – Roger Fry as Art Historian

Emilie Oléron Evans (QMUL) – Nikolaus Pevsner’s ‘Reflections on not teaching Art History’

15.30 Coffee Break

16.00 COMPETING METHODOLOGIES

Anne Uhrlandt (Munich) – Selling German and Dutch Art Abroad: The Émigré Art Historian and Art Dealer Max Stern in London

Morwenna Blewett (Oxford) - Reception, Recognition and Rancour: The Barbed Hand of Rescue and the Impact of Refugee Restorers 1933-1948

17.15 Break

17.30 Burcu Dogramaci (Munich) – Immortal Portraits – Émigrés in Britain and the Historiography of Early Photography

18.00 Discussion and wine reception


Wednesday, 6th November

10.00 WOMEN’S CAREER PATHS

Vivian Zech (Vienna) – The Viennese School of Art History as a Lifeline: Dr. Betty Kurth’s Impact on a Science in Migration

Yonna Yapou (Jerusalem) – Edith Hoffmann: Not quite Czech, German, or British – but anchored by Britain

11.30 Coffee Break

12.00 EXCHANGES IN WRITING AND IN PRACTICE

Astrid Swenson (Bath) – To Relinquish, Rebuild or Ignore: Thinking about Breaks and Continuities in Anglo-German Art Historical Exchanges through Writings on Cologne Cathedral, 1914-1946

Johannes von Muller (Warburg Institute) – ‘Under the most difficult Circumstances'. The Warburg Institute's Exhibition Practice, 1933-48

13.30 Lunch (provided for invited speakers only)

15.00 ART HISTORIES AND JEWISH IDENTITY

Rachel Dickson (Ben Uri Gallery) – Helen Rosenau and J P Hodin: Addressing Jewish ‘Art’ and Artists 1934-1972

Adrian Rifkin (London) – Hearing Voices, between Exile and the Desire to be without: Finding Place to practice Histories of Art

16.30 Final Remarks


Attendance is free of charge.
Please register under: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/innovation-and-acculturation-the-emigre-art-historians-and-britain-tickets-74828844087

This conference is part of the nationwide Insiders/Outsiders Festival celebrating refugees from Nazi Europe and their contribution to British culture.
It is co-organised by the Leo Baeck Institute London, the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures at QMUL, the Courtauld Institute London and hosted by the Centre for Anglo-German Cultural Relations QMUL, with generous funding from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.

For more information on this event please contact Dr Hans Hönes (Courtauld Institute) on: hans.c.honescourtauld.ac.uk or Dr Emilie Oleron Evans (QMUL) on: emilie.oleronqmul.ac.uk