What an interesting area we live in!
This was well illustrated by Averil Nottage’s fascinating and thoroughly researched local history walk, “Artists, Refugees & Spies”, given twice today to large audiences. We wandered the Parkhill, Upper Park Road and Lawn Road area as we followed the stories of a concentration of internationally famous artists and Soviet spies in the 1930s.
As many as 30 Soviet agents operated from the Belsize Park area in the 1930s and 40s. Here was a major recruitment centre and meeting hub for the NKVD, forerunner of the KGB, seeking those with communist sympathies, often rooted in a misguided aim of helping the Russians defeat Nazi Germany – at least until they signed the non-aggression treaty in 1939.
The political upheavals and growing threat of war in Europe in the 1930s not only drew spies but also artists, architects and other intellectuals to London, fleeing from Nazism. Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus, was invited to live in the Isokon building and the Hungarian artist Laslo Moholy-Nagy followed. Many were attracted to Belsize Park by established artists such as Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson, some of 20th century’s finest artists (and, incidentally, profligate lovers).
The art critic Herbert Read joined them in Mall Studios and promoted their work, helping British modernism to lead the way. We were particularly fortunate on the morning walk to be invited into one of the Mall Studios by the owners – a most beautiful and well-loved home.
Many of the exiles from Europe, sensing that the war was getting too close here journeyed further west to the US, leaving their stories and presence behind for us all to enjoy. Standing outside their homes, we heard of many more characters and the audience was held in rapt attention by Averil’s talk.
For those who missed this walk, it will be included in a lavishly illustrated book of six walks around Belsize that Averil will be launching in the autumn.
(A.S.)
