powerful student graphic, Federn, both showing
the freedoms of the Weimar Republic, are notable
exceptions. Modernists Martin Bloch, Hans Feibusch,
Grete Marks and Ludwig Meidner, are among those
who were declared ‘degenerate’ and featured in
the infamous Entartete Kunst (‘Degenerate Art’)
exhibition, their work suffering derision, suppression
and/or destruction. Stripped of their livelihoods in
Germany, this forfeiture was compounded by the
further loss of homeland, loved-ones, language and
culture, endured by all these refugee artists who
attempted to (re)establish their careers in a new
host country. Yet, despite an exhibition of German-
Jewish artists’ work at the Parsons Gallery, London
in 1934, and the Twentieth-century German Art
exhibition at the Burlington Galleries in 1938 –
intended as a riposte to the ‘Degenerate Art’ show
(and in which Bloch and Marks were both included)
– the knowledge and appreciation of German
art in England remained low among the largely
Francophile public.
Some women,