Making a new world: Karin Jonzen and the World Health Organization in New Delhi and Geneva in the early 1960s

This the first art historical study to focus on Karin Jonzen (née Löwenadler, 1914-1998), the youngest sculptor to contribute to the first Battersea Park 'Open Air Sculpture Exhibition' in 1948 and the 'Festival of Britain' in 1951. Löwenadler's pre-war art school training was at the Slade School of Fine Art (1933-1936) and the City and Guilds Art School at Kennington (1937), before winning The British School in Rome Sculpture Scholarship in 1939, thwarted by the outbreak of war. The article focuses on two previously neglected UK commissions that Jonzen completed for the United Nation's specialist agency, the World Health Organisation (WHO) for new headquarter buildings in New Delhi and Geneva in the early 1960s. Drawing upon previously unpublished archive material in Geneva, New Delhi, and London, the article establishes the commissions as government gifts to the WHO and analyses the works in relation to their respective buildings and the WHO's ideals of making a new world dedicated to health as 'a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being'. The research offers new perspectives on Jonzen's sculptural practice and the significance of the commissions in the context of post-war British sculpture and its promotion at home and abroad.