Lucian Freud
Freud is a German-born painter who was the most celebrated British figurative painter of the late 20th century.
1933
1936
Peter Moro CBE
Peter Moro was born in Germany and moved to London, becoming one of the UK’s most prominent post-war architects. He designed many public buildings including the Royal Festival Hall and the Nottingham Playhouse.
Judith Kerr OBE
Judith is an author and illustrator who fled from Nazi Germany as a child and went on to publish award-winning autobiographical novels for children about her experiences.
1939
Eva Frankfurther
Eva Frankfurther was a figurative painter originally from Germany, whose subjects were also her fellow migrant workers in and around Whitechapel.
Frank Auerbach
Auerbach is a German-born British painter, famous for his impasto painting technique and considered one of the world’s greatest living artists.
1940
Josef Herman OBE
Josef Herman was a highly-regarded figurative painter who fled from pre-war Poland in the 1930s. He is best known for his works depicting Welsh miners.
Kurt Schwitters
Kurt Schwitters is one of the major artists of European modernism, famous for his collage works in a technique he called ‘Merz.’
1947
Marina Lewycka
Marina is an author whose first book, A short history of tractors in Ukrainian, sold over a million copies worldwide.
1956
Robert Vas
Robert Vas was a documentary filmmaker from Hungary who saw his artistic mission as being to remind and warn audiences of the abuses of power.
George Szirtes
George Szirtes is a painter-turned-poet originally from Hungary who writes about England and Englishness as well as his Hungarian origins in his poetry and translation work.
1964
Gillian Slovo
Writing, for Gillian Slovo, is best described as a process of interrogation into what happens when individual lives are caught up in political events – her latter works explore her experience as the daughter of anti-apartheid activists in South Africa.
1968
Eva Jiřičná CBE
Eva was born in Zlin, Czechoslovakia where she trained as an architect and came to London in 1968. She was awarded a CBE for services to interior design.
1975
Mona Hatoum
Mona Hatoum is a Palestinian video artist and installation artist born in Lebanon who explores the harshness of life and exile using a variety of media.
1980
Hong Dam
Hong is a visual artist whose work is a journey of self discovery, exploring universal themes of love, loss, separation and hope.
1985
Zory Shahrokhi
Zory is an Iranian visual artist whose work explores displacement, exploitation and gender oppression.
1986
Nadifa Mohamed
Nadifa is a Somali-born novelist whose books have been shortlisted for prestigious awards including the Guardian First Book Award.
M.I.A.
M.I.A. is an award winning recording artist who was born in Sri Lanka to Tamil parents. She is also a songwriter, painter and director.
1989
Téa Hodzic
Singer and guitarist Tea Hodzic was born in Bosnia but is now based in the UK. She performs traditional Bosnian music.
1990
Lucky Moyo
Lucky Moyo hails from Zimbabwe via 45 countries around the world. Lucky was born in what his elders in rural Plumtree-Zimbabwe, called the year of the good rains since in folk and oral traditions years are not known by the calendar dates but what events took place in that year. Lucky comes from a family […]
Khyam Allami
Khyam Allami is a Syrian oud player, collaborator and musical explorer who has performed at WOMAD, the BBC Proms and London 2012 Festival, the cultural festival that accompanied the Olympics.
1991
Mohammed Yahya
Having fled the civil war in Mozambique with his parents when he was 2, Mohammed Yahya and his family faced daily racism and discrimination, whilst squatting in a block of abandoned flats in Lisbon. After his parents divorced, he moved to London with his father at the age of 10. Inspired by his singer father, […]
Rita Ora
Rita Ora is a British singer, songwriter and actress born in Kosovo who had the most number-one singles on the UK Singles Chart in 2012.
1992
Koutaiba al-Janabi
Koutaiba is a Film Director and Photographer who left Iraq when he was 17. His first feature film was released in 2010.
Hamid Ismailov
Hamid is a poet and author from Uzbekistan, and Writer in Residence at the BBC’s World Service.
1997
Alketa Xhafa Mripa
Alketa Xhafa Mripa is a Kosovo born conceptual artist and activist whose work focuses on human rights issues including women’s liberation
1998
Natasha Davis
Natasha Davis is a performance and visual artist whose work explores body, memory, identity and migration. Her embodied practice as performer informs her research as a subject through her own experiences of displacement and migration.
1999
Behjat Omer Abdulla
Behjat is a Kurdish artist whose art reflects the feelings and stories of war that cannot be shared or explained.
2000
Jasim Ghafur
Jasim is a Kurdish visual artist whose work is influenced by his personal experiences of war, displacement and the fight for justice.
2002
Maryam Hashemi
Maryam is a London-based Iranian artist whose work brings past and present together. Her subjects are mostly women.
2004
Ibrahim Fakhri
Ibrahim Fakhri is a Syrian artist and curator primarily concerned with the civil activism in Syria and the Middle East. He has exhibited the graffiti of the Syrian Revolution in venues in Europe and the UK.
2009
Emad Altaay
Emad is a Iraqi visual artist who worked as a teacher in the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad before moving to the UK. He’s exhibited his work in the UK, the USA and across the Middle East.
2010
Basel Zaraa
Basel Zaraa is a Palestinian artist, who was born in the Yarmouk Palestinian camp in Syria. He is a spoken word and stencil graffiti artist and a musician.
2012
Maya Youssef
Maya is a Syrian Kanun Player who was recognized as an Exceptional Talent by Arts Council England in 2012.
al-Saddiq al-Raddi
al-Saddiq is one of the leading African poets writing in Arabic. He writes about his native Sudan.
2013
Farhad Berahman
Farhad Berahman is an Iranian artist and photographer whose work focuses on memory and displacement.
