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.

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 Art16.30 Final Remarks