The exile experience : Hungarian and Czech Cold War refugee artists in Britain

This study is an investigation of the life and work of émigré artists who arrived in Great Britain as refugees after the 1956 revolution in Hungary and after the crushing of the Prague Spring in 1968. The artists selected for examination represent different aspects of cultural production and range from painters through graphic artists and designers to film-makers. The work of these artists is discussed in the wider cultural, social and political context of Cold War Europe. The human aspect, that is, the way in which exile affected individual artists and their lives and altered their perception and artistic output, is a central thread of the thesis. Other key issues that are considered include: the relationship between art and politics, exile and identity, cultural exchange and issues of communication with a foreign audience. The main argument is based on the analysis of selected artworks created in exile and the thesis is structured around eight case studies which explore specific aspects of the uprooted experience in the context of artistic creativity in exile. The major themes which the case studies focus on are: questions of identity and loss in the films of Robert Vas, the feeling of dislocation and alienation in György Gordon’s self portraits, the problems of artistic acceptance in the context of the career of cartoonist Edma, the transposition of Hungarian landscape painting traditions into English art by Gyula Sajo, the origins and artistic benefits of Josef Koudelka’s wandering existence, forms of Czech Functionalism in Eva Jiricna’s architectural designs, nostalgia and memory in the paintings of Jiri Borsky and Jan Mladovsky’s conceptual explorations of Eastern and Western cultural identities. The case studies are used to identify common artistic, philosophical and theoretical threads which connect the visual responses of the examined artists to the wider subject of art in exile.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Nostalgia and identity : British hand-painted ceramic decoration 1870-1920

This thesis discusses hand-painted decoration on British ceramics in the period 1870 to 1920 in the context of changing economic and social climates and gendered employment and occupation. The original impetus for this research came from analysis of ware produced at the South Wales Pottery in Llanelli sometime in the period 1877 to 1920. As the research expanded and links with other potteries were established, it became evident that varied innovations in hand-painted ceramic decoration were influenced by national, local and gendered responses to a period of transition in Britain.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo