This exhibition unfolds the remarkable story of the Abbey Art Centre, a cosmopolitan art colony established at New Barnet in 1946 by charismatic artist, gallerist and collector William Ohly (1883–1955). A crucible of creativity on London’s northern edge, the Abbey was a postwar haven for stateless Jewish refugees as well as artists from Australia, Britain and continental Europe. A seedbed for cross-cultural and transnational modernism, the Abbey proved pivotal to the careers of many artists as they navigated the seismic political and cultural shifts taking place in postwar Britain and beyond.
Art and politics were an inextricable part of Ohly’s life. Born in England to German parents, he trained at the State Academy in Frankfurt in the late 1890s. Much of his work as a sculptor of fountains, architectural bas reliefs and monuments in Cologne, Frankfurt and Berlin was destroyed during the Second World War. Ohly’s humanism was forged during the First World War and subsequent turbulence of the Weimar Republic. Mingling in avant-garde circles in Berlin, he dreamt of creating a communal centre for artists on a non-profit basis.