Exhibition event– Curators’ talk: Dr Barbara Warnock & Dr Helen Lewandowski

This event is organised as part of the event series. Visit the exhibition page to find out more.

In this talk, Barbara Warnock and Helen Lewandowski will explore the genesis and development of the exhibition, from the deposit of the Fred Kormis Collection at the Wiener Library shortly after Kormis’ death in 1986, to its rediscovery by Library staff in recent years, and the process of the curation of the exhibition. They will discuss the collection and the themes explored in the exhibition.

This event includes an opportunity for a private view of the exhibition.

About the speakers:

Dr Barbara Warnock is the Senior Curator and Head of Education at The Wiener Holocaust Library, where she has curated the exhibitions Jewish Resistance to the Holocaust, Berlin-London; The Lost Photographs of Gerty Simon; Fighting Antisemitism from Dreyfus to Today, and Forgotten Victims: The Nazi Genocide of the Roma and Sinti, amongst others. She is the author (with John March) of Berlin-London: The Lost Photographs of Gerty Simon (2019), a Spectator Book of the Year, and the editor of Anti-Antisemitism: Countering Anti-Jewish Racism in Western Europe, 1890-2022 (2022). She has written a number of articles on refugee history, the Nazi persecution of Roma and the history of The Wiener Holocaust Library. She obtained her Doctorate in Austrian history from Birkbeck College, University of London, in 2016. She was for many years a history teacher and examiner.

Dr Helen Lewandowski is an art historian and curator based in London. From 2020 to 2023, she was Assistant Curator and Project Officer for the Refugee Family Papers at The Wiener Holocaust Library, where she developed an exhibition on the life and works of Fred Kormis. Her doctoral research at The Courtauld Institute of Art examined aesthetic changes in modern and contemporary photography. She has curated exhibitions, lectured, and published on numerous subjects, spanning photography, printmaking, and sculpture. Dr Lewandowski is currently Assistant Curator at the Royal Collection Trust. Previously, she held curatorial positions at Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

The Wiener Holocaust Library, 29 Russell Square, London, United Kingdom