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Narrating Lives, from Photograph to Photographer: 'Seeing Daylight: The Photography of Dorothy Bohm'
Date: 10/02/2026
Time: 14:00-15:30
Location: The Buttery, Wolfson College & Online via Zoom
Join us for a screening of Seeing Daylight: The Photography of Dorothy Bohm (2018), followed by a Q&A with Dorothy Bohm’s daughter, Monica Bohm-Duchen. This event will be introduced and moderated by Dr Aviva Dautch.
Touching on life-writing, visual storytelling, and cultural history, this screening and Q&A will appeal to students and scholars of literature, film, and art history, as well as anyone interested in photography, documentary, and the relationship between images, memory, and lived experience. It will also be of interest to those curious about Jewish women’s histories, refugee and migration narratives, and the cultural legacies of displacement in twentieth-century Britain and Europe. No prior specialist knowledge or preparation is required.
Seeing Daylight: The Photography of Dorothy Bohm
Born Dorothea Israelit in 1924 into a Jewish family in Königsberg (then East Prussia), Bohm was sent to England in 1939 to escape Nazi persecution—leaving with little more than a suitcase and her father’s Leica camera.
‘[Bohm] knows her camera not only sees, it feels’—Roland Penrose
Bohm trained in photography in wartime Manchester, began her career as a studio portraitist, and went on to establish herself as one of Britain’s finest humanist street photographers, earning recognition as a ‘doyenne of British photography’. Her work is known for its attentive, compassionate eye: candid street scenes and portraits that linger on fleeting gestures, everyday encounters, and the textures of ordinary life. Bohm declared of her art:
‘I’ve seen a lot. But I don’t show the ugliness of life; I try to show the good’.
Bohm played a key role in London’s photographic culture: in 1971, she became Associate Director of The Photographers’ Gallery, London’s first gallery devoted solely to photography. There she nurtured emerging photographers, including Martin Parr and worked alongside pioneers in her field, such as Henri Cartier-Bresson.
‘Bohm has somehow been cheated of greater prominence [...]. In the documentary, she quotes from one of her own, early interviews: ‘How glad I am to have seen daylight.’ It’s about time Dorothy Bohm’s photographs see more daylight, too’—Shelley Klein, Frieze
Seeing Daylight explores Bohm’s life through photographs, places, and personal testimony, with contributions from close family and friends. Directed by Richard Shaw, it is ‘as much a film about life as it is about art’. Throughout, Bohm’s own words frame photography as a way of holding on to what might otherwise vanish:
‘[photography] fulfils my deep need to stop things from disappearing. It makes transience less painful and retains some of the special magic, which I have looked for and found’
Speaker Details:
Monica Bohm-Duchen is an independent art historian, writer, lecturer and curator, based in London. The institutions she has worked for include the Courtauld Institute of Art, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, Tate, the National Gallery, the Royal Academy of Arts and the University of London. She is the founding Director of Insiders/Outsiders, an ongoing celebration of the contribution of refugees from Nazi Europe to British culture and contributing editor of the companion volume, Insiders/Outsiders, Refugees from Nazi Europe and their Contribution to British Visual Culture. She is the contributing editor of the 2024 monograph Dorothy Bohm at 100: A Life in Photography. Monica has been the curator of her late mother Dorothy Bohm’s photographic archive since the late 1990s and, since the former’s death in March 2023, of the Dorothy Bohm Estate.
Dr Aviva Dautch is the Executive Director of Jewish Renaissance, the UK's Jewish arts and culture quarterly. She lectures on modern Jewish literature at the London School of Jewish Studies and JW3 and contributes to programmes on BBC Radio 4. She is an award-winning poet whose residencies and commissions have included The British Museum, The National Gallery and Bradford and Hay Literature Festivals. Aviva is the Jewish Women’s Voices OCLW Visiting Scholar for 2025-6.
About the Programme:
Jewish Women's Voices is a collaborative initiative by Dr Kate Kennedy, Director of the ‘Oxford Centre for Life-Writing’, and Dr Vera Fine-Grodzinski, a scholar of Jewish social and cultural history.
The Programme is the first of its kind at any UK academic institution. Launched in October 2023, the Programme celebrates the life-writing of Jewish women, who are often underrepresented in mainstream historical accounts. The Programme is a three-term seminar series dedicated to exploring the diverse experiences of Jewish women across centuries, countries, and cultures.
Further information about the Programme can be found here.
Further Details and Contacts:
This hybrid event is free and open to all.
Registration is recommended for in-person attendance and required for hybrid attendance. Registration will close at 10:30 on 10/02/2026.
The seminar will be recorded and made available on the OCLW website soon after. Registration is not required to access the recording.
Queries regarding this event should be addressed to OCLW Events Manager, Dr Eleri Anona Watson.
Date: 10/02/2026
Time: 14:00-15:30
Location: The Buttery, Wolfson College & Online via Zoom
Join us for a screening of Seeing Daylight: The Photography of Dorothy Bohm (2018), followed by a Q&A with Dorothy Bohm’s daughter, Monica Bohm-Duchen. This event will be introduced and moderated by Dr Aviva Dautch.
Touching on life-writing, visual storytelling, and cultural history, this screening and Q&A will appeal to students and scholars of literature, film, and art history, as well as anyone interested in photography, documentary, and the relationship between images, memory, and lived experience. It will also be of interest to those curious about Jewish women’s histories, refugee and migration narratives, and the cultural legacies of displacement in twentieth-century Britain and Europe. No prior specialist knowledge or preparation is required.
Seeing Daylight: The Photography of Dorothy Bohm
Born Dorothea Israelit in 1924 into a Jewish family in Königsberg (then East Prussia), Bohm was sent to England in 1939 to escape Nazi persecution—leaving with little more than a suitcase and her father’s Leica camera.
‘[Bohm] knows her camera not only sees, it feels’—Roland Penrose
Bohm trained in photography in wartime Manchester, began her career as a studio portraitist, and went on to establish herself as one of Britain’s finest humanist street photographers, earning recognition as a ‘doyenne of British photography’. Her work is known for its attentive, compassionate eye: candid street scenes and portraits that linger on fleeting gestures, everyday encounters, and the textures of ordinary life. Bohm declared of her art:
‘I’ve seen a lot. But I don’t show the ugliness of life; I try to show the good’.
Bohm played a key role in London’s photographic culture: in 1971, she became Associate Director of The Photographers’ Gallery, London’s first gallery devoted solely to photography. There she nurtured emerging photographers, including Martin Parr and worked alongside pioneers in her field, such as Henri Cartier-Bresson.
‘Bohm has somehow been cheated of greater prominence [...]. In the documentary, she quotes from one of her own, early interviews: ‘How glad I am to have seen daylight.’ It’s about time Dorothy Bohm’s photographs see more daylight, too’—Shelley Klein, Frieze
Seeing Daylight explores Bohm’s life through photographs, places, and personal testimony, with contributions from close family and friends. Directed by Richard Shaw, it is ‘as much a film about life as it is about art’. Throughout, Bohm’s own words frame photography as a way of holding on to what might otherwise vanish:
‘[photography] fulfils my deep need to stop things from disappearing. It makes transience less painful and retains some of the special magic, which I have looked for and found’
Speaker Details:
Monica Bohm-Duchen is an independent art historian, writer, lecturer and curator, based in London. The institutions she has worked for include the Courtauld Institute of Art, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, Tate, the National Gallery, the Royal Academy of Arts and the University of London. She is the founding Director of Insiders/Outsiders, an ongoing celebration of the contribution of refugees from Nazi Europe to British culture and contributing editor of the companion volume, Insiders/Outsiders, Refugees from Nazi Europe and their Contribution to British Visual Culture. She is the contributing editor of the 2024 monograph Dorothy Bohm at 100: A Life in Photography. Monica has been the curator of her late mother Dorothy Bohm’s photographic archive since the late 1990s and, since the former’s death in March 2023, of the Dorothy Bohm Estate.
Dr Aviva Dautch is the Executive Director of Jewish Renaissance, the UK's Jewish arts and culture quarterly. She lectures on modern Jewish literature at the London School of Jewish Studies and JW3 and contributes to programmes on BBC Radio 4. She is an award-winning poet whose residencies and commissions have included The British Museum, The National Gallery and Bradford and Hay Literature Festivals. Aviva is the Jewish Women’s Voices OCLW Visiting Scholar for 2025-6.
About the Programme:
Jewish Women's Voices is a collaborative initiative by Dr Kate Kennedy, Director of the ‘Oxford Centre for Life-Writing’, and Dr Vera Fine-Grodzinski, a scholar of Jewish social and cultural history.
The Programme is the first of its kind at any UK academic institution. Launched in October 2023, the Programme celebrates the life-writing of Jewish women, who are often underrepresented in mainstream historical accounts. The Programme is a three-term seminar series dedicated to exploring the diverse experiences of Jewish women across centuries, countries, and cultures.
Further information about the Programme can be found here.
Further Details and Contacts:
This hybrid event is free and open to all.
Registration is recommended for in-person attendance and required for hybrid attendance. Registration will close at 10:30 on 10/02/2026.
The seminar will be recorded and made available on the OCLW website soon after. Registration is not required to access the recording.
Queries regarding this event should be addressed to OCLW Events Manager, Dr Eleri Anona Watson.