Loading...
Title: Sites of Interchange

Sites of Interchange

Modernism, Politics and Culture between Britain and Germany, 1919–1955

by Lucy Wasensteiner (Volume editor)
©2022 Edited Collection XXII, 314 Pages
German Studies
Series: German Visual Culture, Volume 8

Summary

Early twentieth-century Germany was a site of extremes, in which cultural production was entangled in the swiftly changing political and economic landscape. Radical utopias and pragmatic solutions for life and culture were proposed, modernism embraced and dramatically rejected. Britain in the same period can seem comparatively stable, a nation wedded to established cultural forms in the face of social change. Yet throughout the period, there remained a lively interchange between the two countries. This collection of essays, by scholars working between Britain and Germany, elsewhere in Europe and in North America, looks anew at the complicated cultural relationship between Britain and Germany in the years between 1919 and 1955. It sets out to explore the connections between the two countries during this time in the fields of fine art and arts institutions, architecture, design and craft, photography, art history and criticism. It explores how practitioners in the two countries learned from and influenced each other, seeking to highlight the relevance of these interchanges today.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • About the author
  • About the book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Table of Contents
  • List of Figures
  • Acknowledgements
  • Introduction (Lucy Wasensteiner)
  • 1 Play, Design, Politics: Technical Toys, Design Policies and British-German Exchanges in the First Half of the Twentieth Century (Artemis Yagou)
  • 2 Dorothy Warren and ‘The Smartest Private Art-Gallery Place in London’: Promoting Exchange with Berlin, 1927–1934 (Ulrike Meyer Stump)
  • 3 Exhibiting Contemporary British Art: The Anglo-German Club, 1931–1934 (Lee Beard)
  • 4 ‘New Eyes for Old’: How the Neues Sehen and the Neue Sachlichkeit Transformed the Photography of Architecture in Britain in the Early 1930s (Valeria Carullo)
  • 5 The Dislocation of Amateurism: Moholy-Nagy in England, 1935–1937 (Leah Hsiao)
  • 6 Lucia Moholy and German Photography History in Britain (Michelle Henning)
  • 7 Interchanged Threads: Modernism and History in Ethel Mairet, Nikolaus Pevsner and the Bauhaus Weavers (Antonia Behan)
  • 8 Walter Gropius and Herbert Read: Architecture, Industry, Transitions and Translations (Karen Koehler)
  • 9 Metropolitan Exile: London, Refugee Artists and Places of Contact in the 1930s and 1940s (Burcu Dogramaci)
  • 10 Berlin in London, Hiddensee in Walberswick: On Ernst L. Freud’s Exile Architecture in England (Volker M. Welter)
  • 11 9, Carlton House Terrace: The German Embassy in London as Showcase for Nazi Ideology (Ina Weinrautner)
  • 12 Planning the Modern City: The Neighbourhood Unit Idea in London and Hamburg before and after the Second World War (Dirk Schubert)
  • 13 Reframing Exilic Identity for a German Audience: Joseph Paul Hodin’s Encounter with Else and Ludwig Meidner and Its Aftermath (Shulamith Behr)
  • 14 Witness to Global Realignments and Human Suffering: Oskar Kokoschka in Post-War London (Keith Holz)
  • Notes on Contributors
  • Index
  • Series index

←viii | ix→

Figures

Figure 1.1.Cover of promotional leaflet entitled The Joy the Child Likes Best (London: Dr Richter’s Publishing Office, 1895), John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. Photo: author’s own.

Figure 1.2.Illustration (detail) included in Anker instruction manual, possibly 1930s, Collection of the Deutsches Museum, Munich. Photo: author’s own.

Figure 1.3.Illustration (detail) on the packaging of Kliptiko construction set, early twentieth century, Collection of the Pollock’s Toy Museum, London. Photo: author’s own.

Figure 1.4.Illustration included in Märklin instruction manual, 1930s, Collection of the Deutsches Museum, Munich. Photo: author’s own.

Figure 1.5.Cover of Meccano Magazine, Vol. XXV, No. 5, May 1940. Photo: author’s own.

Figure 1.6.Lott’s Bricks, Box Three, Series ‘B’, 1920s, Collection of the V&A Museum of Childhood, London. Photo: author’s own.

Figure 2.1.Georg Kolbe, Portrait of Dorothy Warren (1926). Georg Kolbe Museum, Berlin. Photo: Markus Hilbich.

Figure 2.2.The Warren Gallery, London. Gallery One, the ‘Velvet Room’, during the exhibition of D. H. Lawrence’s paintings, July 1929, with photographic portraits of D. H. Lawrence on either side of the ←ix | x→fireplace. On the mantelpiece are Henry Moore’s Head of a Girl (1923) and Bird (1927). From Edward Nehls, ed., D. H. Lawrence: A Composite Biography (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1959), n.p. (between pp. 368 and 369). © 1959 by the Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. Reprinted by courtesy of The University of Wisconsin Press.

Figure 2.3.‘A German Photographer Looks at London’, The Tatler, 19 December 1928, 581. © The British Library Board (ZC.9.d.561).

Figure 2.4.Invitation to the Georg Kolbe exhibition at the Warren Gallery, June 1928, back and front side (pages 4 and 1) of a folded leaflet. Georg Kolbe Museum Archive, Berlin, Georg Kolbe Estate, GK 421.

Figure 2.5.Invitation to the Georg Kolbe exhibition at the Warren Gallery, June 1928, inside pages (pages 2 and 3) of a folded leaflet. Georg Kolbe Museum Archive, Berlin, Georg Kolbe Estate, GK 421.

Figure 2.6.Henry Moore, Mother and Child (1928, LH 51), Styrian Jade, 4 in., formerly coll. Mrs Philip Trotter (Dorothy Warren), whereabouts unknown. Reproduced in Herbert Read, Henry Moore (London: Lund, Humphries and A. Zwemmer, 1949), pl. 10a. Reproduced by permission of the Henry Moore Foundation.

Figure 3.1.The Anglo-German Club, 6 Carlton Gardens, London. Photo: © Tate.

Figure 3.2.Hildebrand Gurlitt (right) with Leopold von Hoesch, 1932. Photo: © Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-13864.

Figure 3.3.Ben Nicholson’s studio, No. 7 The Mall, London. Photo: © Tate.←x | xi→

Figure 3.4.Barbara Hepworth, Figure of a Woman, 1929–1930. Exhibited in Neue Englische Kunst, Hamburg Kunstverein, June–July 1932 (34, as Frau). Photo: E. J. Mason / Barbara Hepworth © Bowness, © Tate.

Figure 3.5.Henry Moore, Ideas for Sculpture: Mother and Child and Reclining Figures, c. 1929. Collage, graphite, watercolour, coloured ink on paper. 32 × 33.8 cm. Kunstmuseum Bern, Cornelius Gurlitt Bequest. Photo: courtesy Kunstmuseum Bern. Reproduced by permission of the Henry Moore Foundation.

Figure 3.6.Cedric Morris with Arthur Lett-Haines (right) and Rubio the parrot. Photo: © Tate / Estate of Arthur Lett-Haines.

Figure 4.1.Restaurant ‘Die Bastei’, Cologne, c. 1927. Architect Wilhelm Riphahn. Photo: Werner Mantz, published in T. P. Bennet, Architectural Design in Concrete (London: Benn, 1927), plate IV.

Figure 4.2.Philip Morton Shand, ‘New Eyes for Old’, The Architectural Review 75 (1934), 11–13, 11 with photograph by Lázló Moholy-Nagy.

Figure 4.3.Studio for Augustus John, Fryern Court, Fordingbridge, Hampsire, 1934. Architect Christopher Nicholson. Photo: Dell & Wainwright. Architectural Press Archive / RIBA Collections.

Figure 4.4.Embassy Court, Brighton, 1935. Architect: Wells Coates. Photo: Dell & Wainwright, Architectural Press Archive / RIBA Collections.

Figure 4.5.Pioneer Health Centre, St Mary’s Road, Peckham, London, 1935. Architect: Owen Williams. Photo: Dell & Wainwright. Architectural Press Archive / RIBA Collections.←xi | xii→

Figure 4.6.The penguin pool at London Zoo, Regent’s Park, 1934. Architects: Lubetkin, Drake and Tecton. Photo: John Havinden. RIBA Collections.

Figure 4.7.The Isokon Flats, Lawn Road, Hampsted, London, 1934. Architect Wells Coates. Photo: John Havinden, RIBA Collections.

Figure 5.1.Photograph of a cricket game at Eton College, June 1936, with the description: ‘Fourth of June: Reunion on Agar’s Plough. Cricket may be in progress, but even the people in chairs are only pretending to watch it.’ Photo: László Moholy-Nagy, first published in Bernard Fergusson, Eton Portrait (London: John Miles, 1937). Courtesy of Moholy-Nagy Foundation.

Figure 5.2.Moholy’s cover design for Imperial Airways Gazette, Vol. 8, No. 4, April 1936. László Moholy-Nagy. Courtesy of British Airways Heritage Collection.

Figure 5.3.The Oxford Encaenia procession, 1936. Photo: László Moholy-Nagy, first published in John Betjeman, An Oxford University Chest (London: John Miles, 1938). Courtesy of Moholy-Nagy Foundation and Oxford University Press.

Figure 5.4.View of Christ Church College Oxford, with the silhouette of the Tom Tower projected onto the buildings, 1936. Photo: László Moholy-Nagy, first published in John Betjeman, An Oxford University Chest (London: John Miles, 1938). Courtesy of Moholy-Nagy Foundation and Oxford University Press.

Figure 5.5.Negative photograph of the iron gate of Trinity College Oxford, 1936, with the description: ‘“No undergraduate may be out after midnight without special leave.” A way of rendering the gates of Trinity ←xii | xiii→College impregnable to those who would scale them.’ Photo: László Moholy-Nagy, first published in John Betjeman, An Oxford University Chest (London: John Miles, 1938). Courtesy of Moholy-Nagy Foundation and Oxford University Press.

Figure 6.1.Lucia Moholy, House of Walter Gropius Seen from the West, 1926. Photo: Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin © DACS 2017.

Figure 6.2.Lucia Moholy and László Moholy-Nagy, Double Portrait Photogram, 1923. Photo: Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin.

Figure 6.3.Lucia Moholy, Margaret Emma Alice (‘Margot’) Asquith (née Tennant), Countess of Oxford and Asquith 1935. Photo: National Portrait Gallery, NPG P128 © DACS 2013.

Figure 7.1.Ethel Mairet (1872–1952), 1938. Photo: Dora Head. Ethel Mairet Papers, Crafts Study Centre. Image kindly provided by the Crafts Study Centre, University for the Creative Arts.

Figure 7.2.Maria Holstein, Helene Sinks, Ethel Mairet, Dora Schiemann and Grete Hinze in Germany, 1938. Photo: possibly Marianne Straub. Ethel Mairet Papers, Crafts Study Centre. Image kindly provided by the Crafts Study Centre, University for the Creative Arts.

Figure 7.3.Ethel Mairet weaving, c. 1930s. Photo: N. Wymer. Ethel Mairet Papers, Crafts Study Centre. Image kindly provided by the Crafts Study Centre, University for the Creative Arts.

Figure 8.1.Herbert Read, Naked Warriors (London: Arts & Letters, 1919) Cover design, Wyndam Lewis.←xiii | xiv→

Figure 8.2.Ernst Friedegg and Ernst Drahn, eds, Deutscher Revolutions Almanach für das Jahr 1919: über die Ereignisse des Jahres 1918 (Hamburg: Hoffmann & Campe, 1919). Cover design Ernst Drahn.

Figure 8.3.Walter Gropius, New Architecture and the Bauhaus (London: Faber and Faber, 1935).

Figure 8.4.Walter Gropius, New Architecture and the Bauhaus (London: Faber and Faber, 1935). Book jacket design, Lázló Moholy-Nagy.

Figure 8.5.Herbert Read, Art and Industry (London: Faber and Faber, 1934). Cover design Herbert Bayer.

Figure 8.6.Herbert Read, Art and Industry (London: Faber and Faber, 1934). Cover design Herbert Bayer.

Figure 8.7.László Moholy-Nagy, Bill of Fare [Gropius Dinner, 9 March 1937] (London: Lund Humphries, February 1937). Photo: Royal Institute of British Architects Archive.

Figure 9.1.Ernö Goldfinger, 2 Willow Road, Hampstead, London, 1939, the street facade, photo: Sydney W. Newbery, 1940 (Architectural Press Archive / RIBA Collections, RIBA3394-55).

Figure 9.2.Ernö Goldfinger, 2 Willow Road, Hampstead, London, 1939, Interior, Dining Room, photo: Dell & Wainwright, 1939 (Architectural Press Archive / RIBA Collections, RIBA8557).

Figure 9.3.Catalogue of the Aid to Russia exhibition, 1942. Photo: Archive 2 Willow Road, National Trust Collections. With kind permission of the Goldfinger Family. Copyright Ernö Goldfinger.

Figure 9.4.Aid to Russia exhibition in 2 Willow Road, 1942, with Pablo Picasso’s La Niçoise, 1937 – today known ←xiv | xv→as the portrait of Nusch Eluard. With hat: Nancy Cunard. Photo: Archive 2 Willow Road, National Trust Collections. Collections. With kind permission of the Goldfinger Family. Copyright Ernö Goldfinger.

Figure 9.5.Wells Coates, Lawn Road Flats, Hampstead, London, 1934 (Architectural Press Archive / RIBA Collections, RIBA2508-9).

Figure 9.6.Lawn Road Flats, Hampstead, London: The Isobar, photo: Dell & Wainwright, 1937 (Architectural Press Archive / RIBA Collections, RIBA5745).

Figure 10.1.Ernst L. Freud, Marx house, London, 1935–1936, garden façade. Photo: RIBA Collections.

Figure 10.2.Otto Salvisberg, Wiertz house, Berlin, 1928, garden façade, from Neue Villen (Stuttgart: J. Hoffmann, c. 1929). Photo: Canadian Centre for Architecture.

Details

Pages
XXII, 314
Publication Year
2022
ISBN (PDF)
9781789973921
ISBN (ePUB)
9781789973938
ISBN (MOBI)
9781789973945
ISBN (Hardcover)
9781789973914
DOI
10.3726/b15599
Language
English
Publication date
2021 (December)
Keywords
German modernism UK-German Exchange German culture Sites of Interchange Lucy Wasensteiner
Published
Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, New York, Wien, 2022. XXII, 314 pp., 24 fig. col., 53 fig. b/w.

Biographical notes

Lucy Wasensteiner (Volume editor)

Lucy Wasensteiner studied law at the universities of Bristol and Oxford and holds a PhD in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art. Her research focuses on modern art in German-speaking Europe from 1871, National Socialist cultural policy and its international implications and provenance research. She was previously an associate lecturer at the Courtauld Institute and a lecturer at the University of Bonn in the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation Centre for Provenance Research, Art and Cultural Heritage Law. She is currently director of the Liebermann-Villa am Wannsee in Berlin.

Previous

Title: Sites of Interchange