Closed Doors to Open Minds: Refugee Policies, Crossing Frontiers, and Émigré Art History

Abstract

The present contribution focuses on the impact of closed frontiers and immigration policies in the tragic period of the 1930s when the need to emigrate became more and more evident for populations and individuals directly threatened by the rise of totalitarian regimes. I will, in the first part, briefly recall the problematic role of emigration policies, especially in the United States. In the second part, I will recall the stories of art historians who emigrated, and the impact of this experience on their scholarly engagement. Ultimately, I wish to open the question of art historians’ shifting engagement with societal issues through the impactful experience crossing frontiers had on their intellectual framework. How much, indeed, can we still learn today from the experiences of émigrés at a moment when the field of art history and visual studies itself has radically expanded and is in urgent need of reassessing its place and role within society?