Exiles and Emigres

The rise of the Nazis in 1933 caused an unprecedented forced migration of hundreds of artists within and, in many cases, ultimately away from Europe. Exiles and Emigres, published in conjunction with a traveling exhibition opening in February 1997 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is the first book to trace the lives and work of 23 well-known painters, sculptors, photographers, and architects exiled from their homelands during the 12 years of Nazi rule.Some of the artists, such as Kandinsky, Beckmann, Heartfield, Schwitters, and Kokoschka, sought refuge in Paris, London, or Amsterdam. Others, including Leger, Ernst, Chagall, Gropius, and Mies van der Rohe, fled to the United States. For all the artists, their years of exile would become crucial to the development of their art.Essays by 19 prominent American and European art historians discuss all aspects of the artist in exile, from monographic studies of individual figures to an analysis of the French artistic community in New York.More than 300 illustrations, including many historical photographs, provide a rich visual documentation of the time. An illustrated chronology details key cultural and political events. The related exhibition travels to the Musee des Beaux Arts de Montreal in June 1997 and to the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, in October.