Nick Warr and Simon Dell – the curators of a fascinating exhibition Norwich Works: The Industrial Photography of Walter and Rita Nurnberg currently on at Norwich Castle Museum until 14 April - will talk about the too little known German-born émigré photographers Walter and Rita Nurnberg.
Walter (1907-1991) and Rita (1914-2001) Nurnberg established a commercial photographic studio in London in 1934 after relocating from Germany. Walter, a former pupil and tutor at the prestigious Reimann School of Art and Design in Berlin, made a name for himself in product photography. After the Second World War, the Nurnbergs concentrated their collective skills in documenting and celebrating the workers of Britain.
Over the subsequent decade, the Nurnbergs made photographs for many of the nation’s most significant companies and their distinctive style of black and white images transformed the image of post-war British industry. While the work they produced for three Norwich manufacturing institutions - Boulton and Paul, Mackintosh-Caley and Edwards and Holmes – form the centrepiece of the current exhibition, the speakers will set this work in the broader context of Walter and Rita Nurnberg's lives and careers.
Dr.Nick Warr is Lecturer in Art History and Curation in the School of Art, Media and American Studies at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. He is also Curator of Photographic Collections, Course Director of Art History and World Art Studies, and Academic Director of the East Anglian Fim Archive.
Dr.Simon Dell is an art historian who taught at the University of East Anglia for over twenty years. His key research interests include photography, with special reference to France, Germany, the Soviet Union and the United States, and the relationship of the visual and the political in interwar Europe.
Image: Walter and Rita Nurnberg, Check weighing and closing cartons, Mackintosh-Caley, Chapelfield Works, Norwich, 1958 (detail)
Insiders/Outsiders is an ongoing celebration of the indelible and pervasive contribution of refugees from Nazi-dominated Europe to British culture.
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