The Lwow Masterpiece

Born in Lwow in 1921, the photographer Jorge Lewinski survived Russian forced labour in Siberia, and was sent by the Polish army to Britain in 1942 to join the RAF. He settled in England and developed a name for himself as a photographer of writers and artists in Britain (including Bacon, Lowry and Hockney). In Palmers Green his portrait of Stevie Smith is considered a masterpiece. Stevie Smith (who was born in Hull) wrote the poem 'In my dreams' which Prigentia now recites to young Kimrock as (truanting from school) they walk across the Downs to Telscombe in the footsteps of Leonard and Virginia Woolf. Lewinski was married to Mayotte Magnus, and was not related to any White House interns.