Artist Info
Romek Marber
Romek Marber, graphic designer, born 25 November 1925; died 30 March 2020
Marber was born into a Jewish family in Turek in Poland. When the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, the family tried to escapeby fleeing to Warsaw, but they were cut off by a siege of the city. Marber’s father, who was on the Gestapo wanted list, escaped with Marber’s elder brother, Kuba, believing that women and children would be safe back in Poland. Not long afterwards Romek and his twin sister, Roma, were transported, along with his mother and grandparents, to the Bochnia ghetto to the east of Krakow. Romek was the only one to survive the concentration camps. After the war he joined his father and brother in London and studied commercial art at Saint Martin's School of Art (where he met his wife the graphic designer Sheila Perry) and later Graphic Design at the Royal College.
He worked as assistant to Herbert Spencer before setting up his own practice designing for the Economist, Penguin and The Observer.
In 1967 he became consultant head of graphic design at Hornsey College of Art (later part of Middlesex University), where he stayed until 1988.
He wrote an account of his childhood experiences during the holocaust, which was published in 2010.
(from an obituary in The Guardian written by Bruce Brown)
During 2005-6 Romek created a 16 hour recording for NLS Artists' Lives (based at the British Library), working with interviewer Anna Dyke.
