During the Second World War Amersham became a vibrant hub of artistic life, shaped by a remarkable community of émigrés. A new exhibition at Amersham Museum, explores the circle of musicians, writers, and visitors who brought new creative energy to the area.

Leo Black, a producer at the BBC for over 28 years, who spent his childhood in Amersham during the war, wrote that “the town swarmed with culture”.

Marie-Louise von Motesiczky and Elias Canetti

After the annexation of Austria by Germany in 1938, artist Marie-Louise von Motesiczky and her mother Henriette fled Vienna to Amsterdam and London, before settling in 1940 in Cornerways on Chestnut Lane, Amersham.

Cornerways also housed the library of the Bulgarian-born author, Elias Canetti. The Canetti family moved to Manchester in 1911, but after his father’s sudden death a year later, they moved to Switzerland. Canetti studied chemistry in Vienna but fled Austria after the Anschluss with his wife Veza.

Having met in Hampstead, the Canettis followed Marie-Louise to Amersham where they were billeted with Reverend Gordon Milburn on Stubbs Wood. As both Veza and Canetti spoke fluent English, they were able to help the Motesiczkys with some of the practicalities of settling in the area. Canetti and Marie-Louise embarked on a complicated affair which lasted for three decades. Canetti encouraged Marie-Louise’s painting and was painted by her many times.

Marie-Louise’s double portrait of herself and Canetti, painted after their years in Amersham, expresses some of the complexities of their affair. The washed-out colour scheme and position of Marie-Louise at the edge of the composition echo the awkward relationship between them. Canetti is absorbed in the newspaper while Marie-Louise seems to be waiting patiently for him to notice her. The shaft of light and pot of quills divide them. Poignantly, as in life, they continue to be both together and apart.

Marie-Louise supported Canetti financially and encouraged his writing but his second marriage, following Veza’s death, caused her great sadness.

Canetti’s posthumously published memoir, Party in the Blitz, gives an insight into his four years in the town. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1981 “for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power”.

Marie-Louise moved back into London after the war. Henriette stayed in Amersham until they both moved into Marie-Louise’s house in Chesterford Gardens, Hampstead in 1960. They kept on the Amersham house and spent some of the summer months there until the mid-1970s.

Mary Duras

Marie-Louise’s choice of Amersham as a refuge from London in 1941 is probably explained by her relationship with the sculptor Mary Duras, who like Marie-Louise and Henriette had a Czech passport. Mary chose her country-escape by spreading a map out and allowing her finger to fall at random. Her haphazard selection was Amersham. Having known each other since the 1920s, Marie-Louise may have followed her here.

Mary was an established sculptor in Prague who exhibited her work throughout Europe. Planning to hold an exhibition here, she arrived in March 1938, just as German troops marched into Czechoslovakia. As a member of the anti-Nazi group Prager Secession, she successfully applied for refugee status and was initially supported by the Czech Refugee Trust Fund. Her Jewish husband, Arnold Schὕck, was unable to follow her. He was deported to Auschwitz which he survived, but his health never fully recovered.

Mary could not find accommodation in overcrowded Amersham and ended up at Wendover Dean, before moving -in with artist, Augusta ‘Dussie’ North’ at her converted barn at Small Dean Farm. With her own studio space in the barn, Mary was able to continue with her sculpture. Her busts included portraits of Marie-Louise and Winston Churchill.

In 1942 Mary and Marie-Louise von Motesiczky took part in the Allied Artists Exhibition which toured Britain. Two years later, they held a joint exhibition at the Czechoslovak Institute.

After the war Mary returned to her husband in Prague. They escaped to Hamburg from the Czechoslovakian Government during the 1960s. After the death of her husband, she lived in Graz until her death in 1982. She is best known for her sculpture ’Mother with Dead Child’, erected in the concentration camp of Auschwitz.

Laelia and Walter Goehr

Music provided the catalyst for émigré couple, Laelia and Walter Goehr, who created their family home in Amersham. Russian-born Laelia Rivlin, a classically trained pianist, first found success as a young woman in an American style cabaret act in Berlin ‘The Stone Sisters.’

Laelia’s music career ended when she met composer, conductor and arranger Walter Goehr at a party given by the future Hollywood film director Billy Wilder. They married in 1931. As a Jew, and branded a leftist by the Nazis, Walter was sacked from his job as a composer on Berlin Radio on 10 August,1932, the day his son Alexander (“Sandy”) was born.

Luckily Walter was offered a role with The Gramophone Company in London, who sent him money with which he was able to buy a car. The Goehrs drove from Germany to England to start a new life. They initially lived in Wembley before moving to Amersham in 1939, settling at 17 Batchelors Way.

Laelia wanted to contribute to the war effort and became a volunteer for the YMCA ‘Snapshots from Home League’. A network of volunteer photographers fulfilled requests from men and women on active duty for images of their families and even pets.

During the war, Laelia met the celebrated photographer Bill Brandt with whom she took informal lessons before establishing a small studio in Amersham at Turret House, where her son attended prep-school. Laelia’s wide circle of friends and contacts helped her new career to flourish.

The Goehrs left Amersham in the 1950s, and after the breakup of their marriage, Laelia settled in Hampstead. She later married architect and painter Henry Frankowski. ‘Sandy’ Goehr followed in his father’s footsteps, studying composition at the Royal Manchester College of Music and pursuing a successful career as a composer and academic. 

The exhibition at Amersham Museum runs until 13 December 2026 and is included in the entrance price to the mC2useum, open Wednesday to Sunday (and Bank Holidays), 11.30am to 4pm.