British art publishing owes a great debt to Vienna: both Phaidon and Thames & Hudson were founded by émigrés who had escaped Nazi-occupied Austria and Germany to Britain. They brought with them to this country their art historical knowledge, their design, printing and reproduction techniques, employing many of their fellow countrymen in the production of their affordable art books, which were attractive and always well researched. Overcoming the trauma of the loss of their homeland, the publishing émigrés changed the British art book market for good - their publishing houses still thrive today.

Anna Nyburg talks about her forthcoming book Emigrés: the transformation of Art Publishing in Britain published by Phaidon.

This talk accompanies the ACF exhibition Reassembling Past Futures. Austrian-German duo Klub Zwei map the transition of Phaidon Press from Austria to the UK. The Jewish publisher Béla Horovitz saved the press from national socialist repossession of property by migrating the press to London. The 3-channel installation Phaidon. Presses in Exile (2006), discusses the history of Phaidon press using memory and personal accounts to disrupt or further inform the established subjects and narratives of that time. It touches on notions of reparation and the subsequent effects of this period.