This illustrated lecture by London-based art historian Monica Bohm-Duchen will examine the significant contribution made to British visual culture by artists of Jewish origin, against a background of increasing emancipation and assimilation from the nineteenth century onwards. The main focus will be on the early twentieth century generation of artists (among them Jacob Epstein, David Bomberg and Mark Gertler) who came from Yiddish-speaking Russian and Eastern European immigrant families and on those (such as Josef Herman, Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach) who found refuge in Britain from Nazism in the 1930s. The lecture will conclude with a discussion of UK-based artists active today whose work grapples with the still complex issue of Jewish identity in the contemporary world.

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Monica Bohm-Duchen is a London-based independent writer, lecturer, and curator. The institutions she has worked for include the Courtauld Institute of Art, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, Tate, the National Gallery, the Royal Academy of Arts and the University of London. The exhibitions she has curated or co-curated include Art in Exile in Great Britain 1933-1945; Chagall to Kitaj: Jewish Experience in 20th Century Art; After Auschwitz: Responses to the Holocaust in Contemporary Art, Rubies and Rebels: Jewish Female Identity in Contemporary British Art and Charlotte Salomon: Life? Or Theatre?. She is the founding director of Insiders/Outsiders, an ongoing celebration of the contribution of refugees from Nazi Europe to British culture and contributing editor of its companion volume (Insiders/Outsiders – Lund Humphries).

This illustrated lecture by London-based art historian Monica Bohm-Duchen will examine the significant contribution made to British visual culture by artists of Jewish origin, against a background of increasing emancipation and assimilation from the nineteenth century onwards. The main focus will be on the early twentieth century generation of artists (among them Jacob Epstein, David Bomberg and Mark Gertler) who came from Yiddish-speaking Russian and Eastern European immigrant families and on those (such as Josef Herman, Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach) who found refuge in Britain from Nazism in the 1930s. The lecture will conclude with a discussion of UK-based artists active today whose work grapples with the still complex issue of Jewish identity in the contemporary world.

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Monica Bohm-Duchen is a London-based independent writer, lecturer, and curator. The institutions she has worked for include the Courtauld Institute of Art, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, Tate, the National Gallery, the Royal Academy of Arts and the University of London. The exhibitions she has curated or co-curated include Art in Exile in Great Britain 1933-1945; Chagall to Kitaj: Jewish Experience in 20th Century Art; After Auschwitz: Responses to the Holocaust in Contemporary Art, Rubies and Rebels: Jewish Female Identity in Contemporary British Art and Charlotte Salomon: Life? Or Theatre?. She is the founding director of Insiders/Outsiders, an ongoing celebration of the contribution of refugees from Nazi Europe to British culture and contributing editor of its companion volume (Insiders/Outsiders – Lund Humphries).