From Internee to Art Collector: Tribute to Ruth Borchard

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

Screening of film about former refugee/internee Ruth Borchard and her magnificent collection of self-portraits by British-based artists.

Born near Hamburg in 1910, the writer Ruth Borchard came as a German-Jewish refugee to Britain in 1938. As an ‘enemy alien’ in wartime she was imprisoned first in Holloway Prison, then interned in Rushen women’s camp on the Isle of Man. Her fictionalised memoir We Are Strangers Here: An Enemy Alien in Prison in 1940, only published after her death, provides a rare insight into life as a refugee in Holloway Prison.Between 1958 and 1971 she amassed a superb collection of over 100 self-portraits by British-based artists, well-known and less well-known, which provides a fascinating overview of British portraiture in the mid-twentieth centuryAfter her death in 2000, the collection was transferred to a charitable trust to become the Original Ruth Borchard Collection, under the custodianship of Piano Nobile. In 2011 a biennial self-portrait prize was set up in her name, with a selection of submitted works acquired for the Next Generation Collection. For more information, click <a href="https://ruthborchard.org.uk/history/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">here</a>.The film being screened was made by Unity House for Sky Arts in 2020, to coincide with an exhibition of works from the Ruth Borchard Collection being shown on the Isle of Man.It will be followed by a Q&amp;A with, we hope, members of Ruth’s family as well as others intimately familiar with her life story and achievements.This event is held in partnership with <a href="https://www.jewishrenaissance.org.uk/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Jewish Renaissance </a>magazine.Image: Michael Noakes, Ruth Borchard (detail), 1958, oil on canvas, 52 x 42 cm. Ruth Borchard CollectionFor details of other events in this series, click <a href="https://insidersoutsidersfestival.org/events/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">here</a>.

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From Internee to Art Collector: Tribute to Ruth Borchard

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From Internee to Art Collector: Tribute to Ruth Borchard

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