Art and politics side by side in Burgh House exhibition

Hampstead’s past as a refuge for artists and creatives fleeing Nazi Europe is examined in Art Aiding Politics at Hampstead Museum

For centuries, Hampstead has been a place of refuge and reflection, a melting pot for creative souls.

An exhibition at Burgh House focuses on the reaction of some of those residents to the tumultuous political events of the early 20th century; from the Spanish Civil War to the rise of the Nazi party and the outbreak of World War II.

Art and artefacts relating to surrealist Roland Penrose and his photographer wife Lee Miller, German-Jewish artists Fred Uhlman and Milein Cosman who moved to Hampstead from Germany in the 1930s, and celebrated graphic designer FHK Henrion, feature in Art Aiding Politics.

Running until March 2020, the free exhibition examines their reactions to these events, and the communities of support that they developed in 30s and 40s Hampstead.

The display is part of the Insiders/Outsiders Festival, a nationwide arts festival celebrating refugees from Nazi Europe and their contribution to British culture.

The festival is the brainchild of local art historian Monica Bohm Duchen whose photograper mother Dorothy Bohm fled Nazi Europe in 1939 to flee and settled in Hampstead.

insidersoutsidersfestival.org