Fred Kormis

Fred Kormis was an artist whose life and work were shaped by upheaval, displacement, and an unwavering belief in the power of art to hold memory. Born Fritz Isidor Kormis on 20 September 1894 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, he grew up in a Jewish family with both Austrian and German roots. From an early age he showed artistic promise, apprenticing in a sculptor’s workshop as a teenager and pursuing formal training when a scholarship brought him to the Frankfurt Art School.

His early adulthood coincided with the outbreak of the First World War, a turning point that would leave a lasting imprint on his creative vision. As a young man serving in the Austrian army, Kormis was wounded on the Eastern Front and taken prisoner by Russian forces, spending several years confined in a Siberian camp.
After escaping and returning to Germany in 1920, Kormis resumed his artistic practice with vigor. He married Rachel Sender in the mid-1920s and quickly established himself as a portrait sculptor and medallist. His finely crafted bronze medallions featured both well-known public figures and intimate likenesses, earning him recognition across Europe. But the rise of Nazism in the early 1930s forced another profound rupture. As anti-Jewish policies intensified, Kormis made the courageous choice to openly acknowledge his Jewish heritage, even though it meant his work would be denounced. Labeled “degenerate” by the regime, he and his wife fled first to the Netherlands and then, in 1934, to England, leaving much of his life’s work behind and forging a new start in exile.

Settling in north London, Kormis slowly rebuilt his artistic life. Even during the Second World War — when his studio was destroyed in a bombing raid — he continued creating, often working in ceramics or making small sculptural pieces to support himself. Yet through every upheaval he maintained a central theme: the human condition under duress.
Despite his technical mastery and the profound emotional power of his sculptures, Fred Kormis remained relatively obscure during his lifetime. It is only in recent years that scholars and institutions have begun to appreciate the depth of his artistic legacy. Major exhibitions — most notably at London’s Wiener Holocaust Library — have brought renewed attention to his prints, portraits, and memorial work, framing him not merely as a skilled sculptor but as an essential witness to the century’s traumas.

Kormis continued creating art into his late years, working daily in his studio until health or circumstance intervened. He passed away in 1986 in London, leaving behind a body of work that stands not just as art but as a testament to resilience and remembrance.