Interned Artists: Ben Uri and the 80th Anniversary of Internment

Graphic artist and painter, Kahn studied in Stuttgart, under Schneider at the School of Arts and Crafts, before moving in 1926 to study with Leger in Paris. In 1936 he took part in the National Exhibition of Jewish Artists in the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Following a period in 1938 when he was imprisoned by the Nazis at Welzheim concentration camp, near Stuttgart, Kahn fled to England in 1939. He became an active member of the Frei Deutsche Kultur Bund (Free German League of Culture, a refugee organisation which flourished in exile and had headquarters in Hampstead), designing several FDKB posters and catalogues. Kahn was interned at Hutchinson Camp on the Isle of Man, with Fechenbach, Hinrichsen, Hamann, Schwitters and Weissenborn, amongst others, where he became a significant contributor to the camp art exhibitions and to camp publications, notably recording the extraordinary output of university-style lectures delivered by his fellow internees in the open air, in sketches such as "The Philosophers" and "Speaker on the Lawn", which appeared in The Camp. Kahn also invented a printing technique in camp using wax stencils, which enabled multiple copies of illustrated magazines and artists' sketches to be reproduced - which were often given as farewell gifts when internees were released - resulting in a unique visual legacy, recording the range of artists and their artworks made in Hutchinson. On his release, largely neglected by the English art establishment and psychologically troubled, Kahn nevertheless continued to work prolifically in a distinctive expressionist style. He spent time drawing in the informal classes held at the ST. John's Wood art studio of Paul Hamann, the German emigré sculptor, along with Dachinger and Nessler. Although an isolated figure, Kahn enjoyed the support of the art historian and art critic Professor J P Hodin (himself a Czech émigré, who became Director of Studies at the newly-founded ICA in 1954), and his work was shown commercially at the Redfern Gallery (1956) and at Annely Juda's Molton Gallery (1960) - Juda herself was an émigrée. John Denham, who supported many 'forgotten' émigré artists, held a solo exhibition in 1989. The greatest collection of Kahn's work is now held by the Berardo Collection in Lisbon, Portugal. This seemingly abstract composition, with its rich palette and impasto, is typical of Kahn's expressionist work. The Ben Uri Collection also contains several nude sketches energetically executed in red chalk and which may have been made in Paul Hamann's life classes.