Show puts creator of first UK Holocaust memorial in the spotlight

The work of an overlooked GermanJewish artist who created the UK's first memorial to victims of Nazi persecution is to be the focus of an exhibition that shines light on the unreported aspects of his life.

- Ben Quinn

Fred Kormis, who fled Germany in the 1930s and later became a UK citizen, was described by the Wiener Holocaust Library in London as a forgotten émigré artist who played a unique role in Weimar culture and 20th-century British art.

A prolific sculptor and printmaker, Kormis charted the emotional impact of the horrors of the 20th century while drawing on his experiences of being held in a prisoner of war camp in Siberia during the first world war, living in Weimar Germany and taking flight from the Nazis.

Dr Barbara Warnock, a senior curator at the Wiener Library, said he had been overlooked in Britain partly because of his experience of being a refugee who had to leave his works behind in Germany.