Rachel Dickson

Profile

Rachel Dickson (MA, Courtauld Institute) is an art historian and formerly Head of Curatorial Services at the Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, London (2011-2020), currently consultant editor, Ben Uri Research Unit (buru.org.uk). Her research focuses on the two principal waves of Jewish migration into Britain from the late 19th century onwards, following Ben Uri's survey exhibition (2009-10) Forced Journeys: Artists in Exile, c. 1933-45. She has curated numerous exhibitions focusing on migrated artists and designers, and has published and spoken in the UK and Europe, including at the Tate, National Portrait Gallery, and Imperial War Museum. Her contributions to the Research Centre's Yearbook include: 'Elisabeth Tomalin – Emigré Designer 1912-2012: “The only joy in life is being creative. Everything else is more or less pain”’ (2017); '"The Man from the Bauhaus": The Lost Career of Werner "Jacky" Jackson' (2019); ‘"Almost as Impressive as its Legacy in the Visual Arts": Ben Uri Art Society and Music in Exile, 1931–60’  (2023); ‘Helga Michie, Ruth Rix and Rebecca Swift: Reflections on Art in Exile across Three Generations through the Exhibition Staircase (2000)’ (forthcoming, 2024). Selected recent/forthcoming publications include: [with Sarah MacDougall] 'Mapping Finchleystrasse: Mitteleuropa in North West London' in Arrival Cities: Migrating Artists and New Metropolitan Topographies in the 20th Century (Louvain,2020/jstor.org); and 'Renate Meyer: From Berlin to the Bodley Head: Renate Meyer (1930-2014): The Rediscovery of a Neglected Children’s Book Author, Illustrator and Artist’ in Innocence and Experience. Childhood and the Refugees from Nazism in Britain (Oxford, 2024). Since 2022 she has been an honorary editorial board member for Archiwum Emigracji, the journal of emigration archives based at Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland.