London Exile: Metropolis, Modernity, and Artistic Migration
Author(s): Burcu Dogramaci (Author)
Publisher: Leuven University Press
Publication Date: November 15, 2025
Language: English
Print length: 600 pages
ISBN-10: 9462704678
ISBN-13: 9789462704671
Book Description
In the 1930s and 1940s, London was a metropolis of artistic exile and a place of refuge from Nazi persecution. London Exile is the first book to look at the British capital as a haven for modern artists. The city presented its new arrivals with opportunities and challenges: exiles established galleries, publishing houses and magazines, collaborated with local artists, organised exhibitions, published, and built networks. Artistic and theoretical production flourished in close dialogue with the urban space.
This volume sheds light on how the arrival of émigrés transformed London’s art scene and, conversely, how the experience of exile and the city shaped the work of immigrant artists in fields such as art, architecture, and photography. London Exile brings art history, urban studies, and exile studies into a vibrant dialogue and contributes to a new understanding of the history of modern art.
Editorial Reviews
Review
Burcu Dogramaci’s London Exile constitutes the definitive history of how the cultural workers who fled Nazi Germany-from artists, photographers, designers, and sculptors to publishers and gallerists-were shaped by their emigration. It also tells the story of how these immigrants left indelible marks on their city of refuge and how their work there forever changed London, remaking it into the celebrated modern cultural metropolis that it is today. – Elizabeth Otto, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
Review
Burcu Dogramaci’s London Exile constitutes the definitive history of how the cultural workers who fled Nazi Germany―from artists, photographers, designers, and sculptors to publishers and gallerists―were shaped by their emigration. It also tells the story of how these immigrants left indelible marks on their city of refuge and how their work there forever changed London, remaking it into the celebrated modern cultural metropolis that it is today.
— Elizabeth Otto, University at Buffalo, State University of New York
About the Author
Burcu Dogramaci is professor of art history and director of the Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.
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