This conference aims to reappraise and – where appropriate – to challenge the received narrative about the history of art history in Britain.

Art History as an academic discipline in Britain is commonly regarded as a German import. Before the 1930s, British art writing was allegedly the domain of the amateur and connoisseur. This only changed radically with the influx of émigré scholars – most of them of German-Jewish descent – to Britain after 1933. These highly skilled professional art historians played a pivotal role in developing the research and teaching programmes of both the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes.

Our aim is to situate the work of the German (-Jewish) émigré art historians in a wider sociology of British Academia, and the intellectual debates within and beyond art historical scholarship. The conference will seek to re-evaluate just how ‘German’ British art history became between 1920 and 1970. The timeframe allows to take into account both the British traditions of art writing before the arrival of the ‘Hitler émigrés’, and the émigré’s legacies up to the redefinition of the discipline brought about by the ‘New Art History’ of the 1970s.

The establishment of art history as a university discipline in Britain was undoubtedly driven by émigré scholars of German (-Jewish) descent, such as Nikolaus Pevsner, Rudolf and Margot Wittkower, Leopold Ettlinger and Edgar Wind, whose impact on British art history is uncontested. Yet, when Pevsner invited, in 1966, a group of colleagues to debate the current state of the discipline, only few scholars of German origin held academic positions at British universities. Apparently, the impact of the émigré scholars on the emerging discipline was less ubiquitous than one might expect.

This raises crucial questions: how successful were the German émigré scholars in ‘importing’ their version of rigorous art history to Britain? Which ‘indigenous’ British traditions of art writing persisted despite the influx from the continent? And to what degree did the émigrés adapt their methods and approaches to the expectations and agendas of their British hosts?

The conference will explore these questions in three main thematic sections:

(1) ART HISTORY AND BRITISH ACADEMIA
Academic Art History in Britain will be further contextualized by exploring its interactions with neighboring disciplines, such as Medieval History and Classics. While the importance of individuals such as Kenneth Clark for the promotion of the discipline has long been acknowledged, the role of less high-profile collaborators of the émigré scholars is still underestimated. Which agendas were pursued by the most vocal supporters of German art history, such as the Finnish medievalist Tancred Borenius, the classical archaeologist Bernard Ashmole or the paleographer Francis Wormald?

(2) COMPETING METHODOLOGIES
Our aim is to examine the interaction between the practices 'exported' by the German émigrés and the British traditions of art historiography. British art writing blossomed in periodicals, with the Bloomsbury Group the most prominent (formalist) voice defending an anti-historicist approach to art. How did the work of the émigré scholars resonate with these existing traditions? Championing the ‘rigorous’ approaches associated with scholars like Wind or Fritz Saxl also entailed a stance against other methodologies. What did the success of the historicist school associated with the Warburg Institute mean for the careers of other émigré scholars with a more formalist profile, such as Otto Pächt or Kurt Badt?

(3) BIOGRAPHICAL PATHWAYS
Revisiting the shaping of art-historical discourse goes hand in hand with a reconsideration of the way émigrés scholars in Britain reacted to their new surroundings. In this section, we will ask how their career and methodology was informed by the British experience, and to what degree their professional ‘acculturation’ depended on the stage at which their career was interrupted – from student to Privatdozent, to established professors. Which émigrés did succeed in Britain – and why? Analysing the role of support networks, scholarly or personal, is crucial for understanding the social dimension of intellectual transfers, and in particular for the reevaluation of the career of women (e.g. Helen Rosenau, Rosa Schapire) who contributed to the discipline from more marginal, sometimes less official positions (assistants, translators, archivists).
 
We welcome proposals around the three themes listed above. Please provide a title and abstract (250 words maximum) for a 30-minute paper, your name and – whenever applicable – institutional affiliation, and a short biography (ca. 100 words).

A limited number of travel bursaries are available for postgraduate students and/or independent scholars from outside London who wish to attend the conference. If you would like to apply, please contact the organisers.

Deadline for submission: 10th June 2019

You should receive an acknowledgement of receipt of your submission within two weeks.

All proposals should be sent by email to:
emilie(.)oleron(@)qmul(.)ac(.)uk and h(.)hoenes(@)leobaeck(.)co(.)uk

The event is co-organised by Dr Hans C. Hoenes (Leo Baeck Institute London) and Dr Emilie Oléron Evans (Queen Mary University of London), and hosted by the Centre for Anglo-German Cultural Relations at QMUL, with generous funding from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. It is part of the Insiders Outsiders Festival – a nationwide arts festival celebrating refugees from Nazi Europe and their contribution to British culture.