ABOUT Hans Hess (1907 – 1975)

Hans Hess was a German Jewish curator, art historian, writer, and communist. Born in Erfurt into a wealthy family whose shoe-making business famously won a contract to produce boots for the Red Army. The Hess family were art lovers and patrons, amassing a collection of over four thousand pieces of original Modern European art, including works by Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and John Heartfield. Some of this collection was stolen by the Nazis and exhibited at the famous Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition in Munich in 1937.

Hans was forced to leave Germany as antisemitism and political oppression became life threatening realities. He came to England in 1935 and played a key role in the establishment of the Free German League of Culture. At the outbreak of war in 1939, he was classified as an “enemy alien’ and interned on the Isle of Man and Canada, eventually returning to Britain in 1942 when he was required to do agricultural work near Loughborough. 1944, Trevor Thomas, the Director of Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, appointed him Assistant Keeper of Art, and in February that year they curated an important and brave exhibition entitled 'Mid-European Art'. Hans went on to work at York Art Gallery, and direct the York Festival, before taking up a post at the University of Sussex in 1967. He wrote prolifically on art, culture, ideology and politics, leaving behind a significant archive of papers that illuminate a period of history that continues to shape and haunt our world today.

About the Foundation

Established in 2025, by Anita Halpin Hans Hess’ daughter and the Hess family Trust, The Hans Hess Foundation is an international organisation devoted to research, political education and furthering understandings of the role of the arts in social justice, political struggle and migrant experience. The Foundation is home to the Hess Family archive including Hans Hess’ personal papers and writings that document his experiences in Germany in the 1920s, and as a political refugee in England from 1935 until his death in 1975. It works closely with the Bauhaus, to whom the family’s Guestbooks from the early twentieth century were donated. The Foundation supports and promotes research projects on the following:

1. Any aspect of Hans Hess’ papers and writings

2. The history of German Jewish political refugees in the twentieth century

3. The history of the Communist Party and radical political organisations in the twentieth century

4. The history of political activism, art criticism, cultural theory and cultural production in the twentieth century

5. The arts and social justice

6. Arts, censorship and political oppression.

7. New models of supporting the creative industries

Alongside research, the foundation supports political education in these and related areas, including events, short courses and workshops. It works closely with Manifesto Press, a workers cooperative. We run events with the support of the MML, PHM, Leicester Art Gallery and Museum, amongst other venues.