Hugo Dachinger British/Austrian, 1908-1995

Hugo Dachinger is a significant protagonist in the history of Austrian art. He played a pioneering role in exile art. In 1938 Dachinger escaped the Anschluss and came to London where he lived until his death in 1995. He is very well known for completing works and organizing the exhibition ‘Art Behind Barbed Wire’ during his internment on the Isle of Man as an enemy alien, which has led to his release and recognition as an artist. His works showed the hard and deprived lives of the internment camp and were painted on newspaper or wallpaper in the absence of painting utensils. Dachinger made the colors from plants and soil, white from toothpaste and brush from his own hair. With his fellow exiled artists he represented the idea of an international artistic language of modernism. He achieved great success during the war when he exhibited with artists such as Picasso, Kokoschka, Schwitters, Braque, Klee, Dufy, Ernst, De Chirico and more in West End Galleries.

Dachinger’s work is part of collections such as the Batliner Collection at the Albertina Museum but is also presented in the collections of English museums such as the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, the Manx National Heritage, Isle of Man and Ben Uri Museum, London - as part of the national heritage.