Insiders/Outsiders: Jewish Artists in Britain from the Nineteenth Century to the Present Day

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.

With Monica Bohm-Duchen.

The talk is part of the National Library of Israel series: “In Her Majesty’s Kingdom – Celebrating the Rich History of Anglo-Jewry”.