Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.


Fred Kormis artist

Fritz (Fred) Kormis was born into a Jewish family in Frankfurt, Germany in 1897 and apprenticed to a sculpture workshop at the age of 14. Following Hitler's rise to power in 1933, he moved first to Holland and a year later to England, where he settled in North London's 'Finchleystrasse'. Much of his oeuvre was lost after his studio was bombed in 1940, however, examples of Kormis' exceptional memorial work still remain, including the five-piece <em>Prisoners of War and Concentration Camp Victims Memorial</em> in Gladstone Park, and a relief plaque, <em>Marchers</em>, outside King's College, London.

Born: 1897 Frankfurt, Germany

Died: 1986 London, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1939

Other name/s: Fritz J. Kormis, Fritz Kormis, Fredericj J Kormis


Biography

Sculptor and medallist Fred (né Fritz) Kormis was born into a Jewish family to an Austrian father and a German mother in Frankfurt, Germany in 1897. At the age of 14, he was apprenticed to the sculpture workshop of Johann Josef Belz (1873-1957) and became a Socialist after seeing a Nationalist party threatening to destroy Georg Kolbe’s Frankfurt memorial to the radical writer Heinrich Heine. His scholarship to Frankfurt School of Art in 1914 was abruptly terminated by the outbreak of the First World War. Conscripted into the Austrian army because of his father’s nationality, he was sent to the Eastern Front, and in 1915 was wounded, captured and imprisoned for the next five years in Siberia – an experience which profoundly influenced the rest of his life and career. He later commented, 'I wouldn't like to miss it [sic], but I wouldn't like to go through it anymore [...] it has shaped my life’ (Imperial War Museum: recorded interview with Jessica Wilks: transcription (1032/1/110-114): p. 4). During captivity, Kormis executed a series of powerful woodcut portrait studies of male prisoners and modelled heads of army officers from frozen clay. He later dated his commitment to memorial work to this time; it became the strongest force in his work, eventually coming to fruition in his monumental POW memorial in post-Second World War England.

Eventually, he escaped, procured a Swiss passport in Vladivostok, and returned to Frankfurt in 1920, building his career as a sculptor with solo exhibitions in Berlin and Frankfurt. In 1931 he accepted a commission from The Society of Returned Prisoners of War to design the section of the Tannenberg Memorial (later destroyed) commemorating dead prisoners; his work was praised by the Fascist press, until he deliberately revealed his Jewish identity and was subsequently forbidden to work, although following Hitler’s accession to power in 1933, he had already decided to leave Germany.

Together with his wife, Rachel (née Sender, 1887-1971), Kormis moved first to Holland, where he taught refugee children and had solo exhibitions in Amsterdam and the Hague, and then, six months later, to England in 1934. He held his first solo exhibition the same year at the Bloomsbury Gallery in London and exhibited at Ben Uri Gallery in 1935. He also exhibited (once) with the progressive London Group in 1936 and participated in the important 1938 Exhibition of Twentieth Century German Art at the New Burlington Galleries in London, a riposte to the Nazi so-called 'Degenerate Art' show mounted in Munich in 1937, but largely worked outside of the émigré network. Much of his major early work was lost after his studio was bombed in 1940; avoiding internment, he carried out war work for the potteries. A commission from American collector Samuel Friedenberg to make a series of medallions of prominent Jewish personalities in Britain, including Hore-Belisha, H J Laski, Selig Brodetsky and Lord Melchett, led to a further commission from publishers Hodder & Stoughton for a Winston Churchill medallion portrait as a frontispiece for Philip Guedalla's biography of the prime minister. Portrait medallions of the War Cabinet including Eden, Cripps, Bevin and Sinclair followed, and a further series of distinguished émigrés in London including King Haakon of Norway and the Belgian Prime Minister Pierlot. In 1945 Kormis had a solo show at fellow ‘Hitler émigré’ William Ohly’s Berkeley Galleries, where he first exhibited a maquette for a Memorial for a war cemetery, declaring that ‘the post-war world need[ed] artistically significant monuments which serve[d] no immediate utilitarian purpose’ (citation). He gained British citizenship in 1947.

A further solo show followed at the Beaux Arts Gallery (1956), joint shows at the Fieldbourne Gallery, with Maud Wethered (1975), and Lord Methuen (1976), and a solo show of Reliefs and Portrait Medallions (1982). He exhibited frequently at Ben Uri (from 1935 onwards), serving as an Arts Committee member (1967–68), and with the Society of Portrait Sculptors (1954, 1955). Critic Peter Stone declared that Kormis was a 'natural sculptor who could do no wrong' (Jewish Chronicle, 25 June 1965). His life’s work culminated in his long-planned five-piece 'Prisoners of War and Concentration Camp Victims Memorial', eventually realised in 1969 (Gladstone Park, Dollis Hill).

Fred Kormis died in London, England in 1986. Posthumous solo shows were held at Ben Uri (1987) and the Sternberg Centre (1988) and he was included at group exhibitions at Ben Uri (including 2010 (touring), 2017), and in Witnesses: emigré medallists in Britain (British Museum, 2019). In autumn 2024 he was the subject of Fred Kormis: Sculpting the Twentieth Century, a retrospective held at the newly-reconfigured gallery space at the Wiener Holocaust Library, London, with accompanying catalogue. Kormis' work is represented in UK collections including the Ben Uri Collection, British Museum, Imperial War Museum, Leeds City Museum & Art Galleries, Royal West of England Academy, Nuffield College (University of Oxford), and the Wiener Holocaust Library (which also holds his archive).

Related books

  • Rachel DIckson, Review of Fritz Kormis: Sculpting the Twentieth Century, Sculpture Journal, Vol. 34.2. 2025, pp. 216-219
  • Barbara Warnock ed., Fred Kormis: Sculpting the Twentieth Century (London: The Wiener Holocaust Library, 2024)
  • Peter Wakelin, Refuge and Renewal: Migration and British Art (Bristol: Sansom and Company, 2019)
  • Sarah MacDougall, ‘Talent[s] of Many Possibilities and of Great Vitality’: Fred Kormis (1897–1986) and Willi Soukop (1907–1995) – Two Émigré Sculptors in England, PMSA Conference 2016
  • Sarah MacDougall, 'Shaped by Life: Public and Private Artistic Responses to Remembrance in the Reconstruction Process in the Work of four Émigré Sculptors', Conference Paper, Imperial War Museum, 2012
  • Jutta Vinzent, 'List of Refugee Artists (Painters, Sculptors, and Graphic Artists) From Nazi Germany in Britain (1933–1945)', in Identity and Image: Refugee Artists from Nazi Germany in Britain (1933–1945) (Kromsdorf/Weimar: VDG Verlag, 2006), pp. 249-298
  • Brian Frederick Foss, 'British Artists and the Second World War. With Particular Reference to the War Artists' Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Information' (PhD Thesis, University College London, 1991)
  • 'Kormis Medal', Jewish Chronicle, 27 November 1987, p. 31
  • 'Shop Window for Young Artists', Jewsih Chronicle, 8 May 1959, p. 23
  • Barry Fealdman, 'Humanity and Integrity in the World of Kormis', Jewish Chronicle, 6 November 1987, p. 14
  • Barry Fealdman, 'Party at 90', Jewish Chronicle, 7 December 1984, p. 2
  • F.G.S., 'Art Notes', Jewish Chronicle, 15 November 1957, p. 30

Public collections

Related organisations

  • Royal Society of British Sculptors (associate member)

Related web links

Selected exhibitions

  • Fred Kormis: Sculpting the Twentieth Century, Wiener Holocaust Library, London (2024)
  • Sternberg Centre for Judaism, London (1988)
  • Fred Kormis Memorial Exhibition, Ben Uri Gallery, London (1987)
  • Jewish Faces: a Contemporary View – The Contemporary Portrait Society at the Ben Uri Gallery (1982)
  • F. I. Kormis: Reliefs and Portrait Medallions, Fieldborne Galleries, London (1982)
  • Drawings of the Twenties by Maud Wethered and Sculpture by Fred Kormis, Fieldborne Galleries, London (1975)
  • Pictures for the Home, Ben Uri Gallery (1965)
  • Ben Uri Fiftieth Anniversary Special Exhibition, Ben Uri Gallery (1966)
  • Royal Academy of Arts, London (1966 and 1964)
  • Annual Exhibition, Ben Uri Gallery (1958)
  • Annual Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Watercolours, Drawings and Sculpture, Ben Uri Gallery (1957)
  • Fred J. Kormis, Beaux Art Gallery, London (1956)
  • Tercentenary Exhibition of Contemporary Anglo-Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Gallery (1956)
  • London Group: Annual Exhibition (1956)
  • Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Gallery (1954)
  • Summer Exhibition by Contemporary Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Gallery (1952)
  • Festival of Britain: Anglo-Jewish Exhibition, 1851–1951, Ben Uri Gallery (1951)
  • Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Jewish Painters and Sculptors, Ben Uri Gallery (1950)
  • Contemporary Jewish Artists: Exhibition of Paintings, Sculpture, Drawings, Ben Uri Gallery (1949)
  • Spring Exhibition: Paintings – Sculpture – Drawings by Contemporary Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Gallery (1948)
  • Spring Exhibition of Painting, Sculpture and Drawings by Contemporary Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Gallery (1947)
  • Exhibition of Portraits by Contemporary Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Gallery (1945)
  • Annual Exhibition of Works by Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Gallery (1935)
  • Exhibition of Works by Jewish Artists, house of Mrs. E. H. Schiff, Lyall Street, Belgrave Square (1935)
  Fred Kormis
   
Ben Uri collection

Fred Kormis in the Ben Uri collection

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Fred Kormis]

Ben Uri library

Publications related to [Fred Kormis] in the Ben Uri Library