Monica Bohm-Duchen explores a new exhibition about the impact artist refugees have had on art in Britain over the last 150 years
I was first made aware of Wales-based curator Peter Wakelin’s plans for this ambitious exhibition in early 2018. When, having heard about my own plans for the Insiders/Outsiders festival, he contacted me in the hope that we might collaborate. Since there seemed an evident synergy between the projects, I was naturally happy to do so.
Nearly two years on, his exhibition is receiving its first showing in the splendid surroundings of Bristol’s Royal West of England Academy (alongside a very different, but in some ways complementary, group exhibition called Africa State of Mind). Importantly for me, it sets the experiences and achievements of the so-called ‘Hitler Émigrés’ (by the curator’s own admission, a pivotal component of the show) in the broader context of those of other refugee artists, past and present, from a wide range of backgrounds.
Miracle in the Internment Camp by Martin Bloch, 1941
The exhibition thus opens with a small group of paintings produced by French artists such as Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro fleeing the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) and ends with a selection of work by young artists, mainly from the Middle East, currently living and working in the UK. The substantial companion volume opens with a chapter about artists from Hans Holbein the Younger onwards, who came to these shores even earlier, fleeing the Reformation and religious strife, and utterly transforming British art in the process.
Cover art: La Route Effet de Neige by Camille Pissarro, 1879
Although the show is visually diverse, any risk of it seeming merely a random and slightly motley compilation of work is avoided by a division of those works into three distinct sections, introduced by informative and well-written wall panels: Missed Opportunities 1870-1920 (including the often-overlooked Belgian artists fleeing the horrors of World War I); The ‘Degenerate' Artists of the 1930s; and Continuing Crises Since 1945. This is definitely a show not to be missed, especially for those living not too far away. And for those in Wales, the show will tour to MOMA, Machynlleth (14 March – 6 June).
Refuge and Renewal: Migration and British Art runs until Sunday 1 March. Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, BS8 1PX. www.rwa.org.uk