In war-damaged 1940s London, British gallery-goers had barely adjusted to Post-Impressionism, let alone the challenges posed by Picasso. Then everything changed. A group of émigrés, who had fled Nazi Europe, resolved to embrace the future and introduce avant-garde artists to the public. Until then artists like Kandinsky, Kokoschka, Gabo, Sutherland and Bacon were scarcely known in Britain. The dealers include Lea Bondi Jaray, Erica Brausen, Henry Roland, Gustav Delbanco, Andras Kalman, Frank Lloyd, Harry Fischer, Annely Juda and Charles and Peter Gimpel. Key artworks by the artists they championed will tell the story of their galleries: St George’s; Roland, Browse & Delbanco; Hanover; Gimpel Fils; Marlborough Fine Art; Crane Kalman; Molton; Hamilton and Annely Juda Fine Art.
Fellow émigrés led a parallel revolution in the staid world of British publishing at Phaidon and Thames & Hudson, providing a platform for scholarship in affordable art books which raised standards of design and reproduction.
