In 1933, the avant-garde explosion of the art scene was destroyed with the rise to power of the National Socialists. For Jewish artists, this meant exclusion, professional bans, and imprisonment. Many fled from the threat into exile. Some of them managed to adapt to the new environment – they significantly influenced the development of photography in the country that offered them refuge. This applies to both press and documentary photography as well as to the artistic photography related to the Bauhaus.

The exhibition comprises approximately 160 works by 10 female and male photographers. The majority of the photographic works were created in the first years of exile and document a cautious approach of the photographers to their new homeland. The images depict the hectic activity in the turbulent streets of New York, shoe and soap sellers in the Lower East Side, theater and ballet scenes from the N. Y. Dance Group, the poor living conditions of workers in London, or the everyday life of Jewish settlers in Jaffa.

The second major part of the photographic works deals with the immediate period after the end of World War II. In Vienna, the first returning soldiers meet their families, in Frankfurt, the black market attracts many visitors, and in Essen, a baby carriage with a newborn stands against the backdrop of the city’s ruins – normal everyday scenes from the second half of the 1940s.

“Photo Art in Exile” offers a comprehensive insight into a special chapter of European history and simultaneously shows the far-reaching consequences this had for the lives and artistic careers of individual photographers. The presented images, some of which will be shown in Germany for the first time, could not be more different. They all share the fact that they reveal ambivalent emotions: sadness at the loss of the old homeland, but also hope for a peaceful, better future.