US: From there to here: Britain’s Gain
Past exhibition
The Restaurant
gouache on paper
35 x 50.5
(lower right): Feigl
1987-95
@Frederick Feigl estate
Photo: Ben Uri Gallery
Feigl returned repeatedly to the motif of coffee houses and restaurants, recalling the 'kaffee haus' culture of his Prague and Berlin years, and his many earlier works on the subject....
Feigl returned repeatedly to the motif of coffee houses and restaurants, recalling the 'kaffee haus' culture of his Prague and Berlin years, and his many earlier works on the subject. In London émigrés like Feigl attempted to recreate this continental atmosphere at their social gatherings - perhaps also to escape their cramped lodgings - particularly at the renowned West Hampstead Cosmo restaurant, where one could “spend all day reading […] over a single cup of coffee or consuming Schnitzel and Strudel with fellow refugees”. In his published writings, J. P. Hodin, with whom Feigl was by this time already close, promoted the intangible benefits of this café society, while also pointing out the scarcity of such spaces in London: “[…] most of the modern principles in art and literature have been worked out over a sociable glass of wine or cup of coffee – in Paris, in Vienna, in Prague. But where does one meet these people in London?”