New research and lecture series "From the Margins. Rediscovered lives from archives"

Opening lecture by Dr Elisa Tamaschke “Many roads lead to you, Rom Landau.” A rediscovery from the estate of Georg Kolbe

The Georg Kolbe Museum is pleased to announce the launch of the new research and lecture series From the Margins. Rediscovered Lives from Archives. It is dedicated to the life and work of extraordinary personalities from the broad field of the visual arts who, for a variety of reasons, have been forgotten and pushed to the margins. Often rediscovered by happy coincidence while working in archives, they are now to be made known to a wider audience through presentations by invited researchers from different generations, opening new perspectives and thus actively expanding the art and cultural-historical canon.

The opening lecture is dedicated to Rom (Romuald) Landau. Born in Łódź in 1899, Rom Landau took private lessons in sculpture with Kolbe in Berlin in the early 1920s before his career took him all over the world. He became a widely published author, world traveller, scholar of various subjects including Islamic studies, part of the British High Society, member of the Royal Air Force, British intelligence officer in the fight against the National Socialists and he campaigned for the rights of homosexual people, among other things. Since his death in Morocco in 1974 at the latest, he has been almost completely forgotten. The lecture will trace this astonishing life, focusing in particular on the young Rom Landau’s time in Berlin in the 1920s.

The regularly organised research and lecture series explores questions of internationality, cosmopolitanism and productive cross-border connections in the first half of the 20th century by looking at supposedly marginal figures. It will mean a consolidation of the network of rediscovered personalities who have received too little attention in art history.

The research and lecture series is generously sponsored by the Ferdinand-Möller-Stiftung.