USC Libraries

Sculptor Sergio López-Mesa and composer Aurelio de la Vega, both prominent Cuban exiles, built distinguished careers in L.A. Their artistic contributions are memorialized throughout the city.

Suspicion of communism infiltrated the entertainment industry and émigrés working in Hollywood soon faced exile from their newly adopted homeland.

Exiled artists Billy Wilder, Thomas Mann, and Arnold Schoenberg relied upon L.A. to give new breadth and meaning to their work.

Los Angeles was once a community of exiled artists and intellectuals. Best-selling author Lion Feuchtwanger served as a cultural link between continents and altered L.A.'s cultural landscape.

Ruth Wallach examines hand-drawn sketches of mid-20th century Modern architecture in Southern California, an art form preserved in the archives of the Helen Topping Architecture and Fine Arts Library at USC.