Debt Owed to Jewish Refugee Art by Revd Jonathan Evens

Debt Owed to Jewish Refugee Art Revd Jonathan Evens After the Second World War, there was an almost unprecedented expansion of the number of church buildings containing works of art, as churches were repaired or built with new work installed in them. This was a time of impassioned artistic activity, in which the catalyst for the Church was, to a significant extent, émigré artists, many of whom were Jewish.

This remarkable generation of refugees from Nazi-dominated Europe contributed artworks that greatly enriched British culture and churches. Yet their significance is only just beginning to be examined and recognised as their legacy comes under threat.

St John’s, Waterloo, is home to two murals by the émigré artist Hans Feibusch. Its Vicar, Canon Giles Goddard, understands more than most the significance of this period, and the issues raised: “Our Feibusch murals have graced St John’s and focused our thoughts for almost 70 years. But it is only now that we, and other churches blessed with works of this period, are beginning to see the bigger picture. What did Feibusch and his fellow non-Christian artists bring to our faith and to our understanding of the post-war world? How can we save their legacy, so significant and yet so much at risk? And how can we respond to the art of refugees in Britain today?”1 Nick Braithwaite, great-nephew of George Mayer-Marton, has campaigned to save his great-uncle’s vast 1955 Crucifixion mural – a rare combination of fresco and mosaic – at the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Rosary, Oldham. He says that these artists brought an “infusion of Continental modernist energy into a conservative art scene in the UK”.

Many of these artists had lost everything before their arrival, and could only eke out a living at first. The sculptor Ernst Müller-Blensdorf, declared a degenerate artist by the Nazis, who ordered all his work to be destroyed, migrated first to Norway. There, his plan for a cultural centre promoting peace, including a sculpture of Fridtjof Nansen, the League of Nations’ High Commissioner for Refugees, attracted widespread support; but as work on the project was about to begin, Norway was invaded, and Müller-Blensdorf fled to Britain.

Nazi persecution also ended the career of Mayer-Marton in Vienna. He, too, fled to Britain, and, as a Hungarian citizen, managed to ship all his Vienna work here. In September 1940, however, a German incendiary bomb destroyed the London studio where he was living, though he and his wife Grete had taken shelter before the air raid.

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