The Painter's Hidden Masterpiece: the story of Johannes Matthaeus Koelz

Nationwide arts festival celebrating refugees from Nazi Europe and their contribution to British cultureMarch 2020 marked the official end of the festival, but also the beginning of a longer-term commitment to celebrating the impact of this remarkable generation of émigrés under the Insiders/Outsiders umbrella

Insiders/Outsiders Festival

Simon Lake, former curator at Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, will tell the story of a remarkable artist, Johannes Matthaeus Koelz

Simon Lake, former curator of the German Expressionist collection at Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, will tell the story of a remarkable and until now almost entirely forgotten artist, Johannes Matthaeus Koelz. Koelz was a non-Jewish Bavarian realist painter, born in 1895, who fought in World War One and won the Iron Cross, yet between 1930-37 secretly created a powerfully expressionist, monumental anti-war and anti-fascist triptych called Thou Shalt Not Kill. Forced to dismember the work in 1937, when facing imminent arrest, he escaped Germany, finally reaching England in 1939 with his family. It was only after her father’s death in 1971 that the artist’s daughter Ava Farrington began a search for the lost triptych and in 1998 that Simon first encountered the fragments of the painting that led to the publication of his <a href="https://simonlake.co.uk/product/the-painters-hidden-masterpiece/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">book</a> over twenty years later. The event will be chaired by art historian Monica Bohm-Duchen, initiator and director of the Insiders/Outsiders Festival.This event is organized by <a href="https://insidersoutsidersfestival.org" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Insiders/Outsiders</a>.As will be evident from the three programmes of free online events we’ve already organized, we are determined that the Insiders/Outsiders Festival should have a rich afterlife. But we need your help. So please consider <a href="https://insidersoutsidersfestival.org/support-us/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">making a donation</a> to the Insiders/Outsiders Arts Foundation (registered charity number 1182867) to enable us to continue with our - entirely not-for-profit - activities. Please note that we are registered for Gift Aid.Image: The Painter&#x27;s Hidden Masterpiece: the story of Johannes Matthaeus Koelz, book cover (detail)

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