Viktor Wynd
British artist and gallery director
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Viktor Wynd is a British artist, author, and curator, known for his collections of curiosities.
Artwork
Wynd established The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & Natural History in London's East End, a cabinet of curiosities featuring two-headed lambs, Fiji mermaids, unicorns, taxidermy, dodo bones, erotica, old master etchings, surrealist, occult and outsider art,[1] and celebrity faeces.[2] The museum was featured in a BBC Four documentary on cabinets of curiosity.[3][non-primary source needed]
He previously ran a curiosity shop, Viktor Wynd's Little Shop of Horrors, dealing in taxidermy, shrunken heads and other oddities,[4] including the erect mummified penis of a hanged man.[5] In 2010 it was reported that Jonathan Ross's wife Jane Goldman had bought the skeleton of a two-headed baby from the shop.[6]
He has curated around 50 exhibitions at his gallery, Viktor Wynd Fine Art, including exhibitions on Mervyn Peake,[7] Tessa Farmer,[8] Leonora Carrington,[9] and Stephen Tennant.[10]
In 2005, Wynd had an exhibition entitled "Structures of The Sublime: Towards a Greater Understanding of Chaos" at Ingalls & Associates in Miami, featuring drawings and video.[11][non-primary source needed]
In 2007 he had another exhibition in Miami entitled "The Sorrows of Young Wynd" (in reference to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) based around a waxwork figure of himself hanging by a noose from the middle of the gallery, and many other images of him committing suicide.[12][non-primary source needed]
He founded The Last Tuesday Society with David Piper in 2003,[citation needed] which became known in London for its halloween parties and masked balls,[13] often with literary themes.[14] He also organised Wyndstock, a festival held at Houghton Hall in Norfolk,[15] and runs a long-running literary salon in London.[16]
Other work
Wynd is the author of four books. His first, Structures of The Sublime: Towards a Greater Understanding of Chaos, a fragmentary modernist anti-novel, was published in Miami in 2005. He went on to publish Viktor Wynd's Cabinet of Wonders with Prestel/Random House in 2014.[17] His third book, The Unnatural History Museum, was released by Prestel/Penguin Random House in 2020,[18] followed most recently by Dark Fairy Tales: Stories from Around the World (That Are Definitely Not Suitable for Children) in 2025.[19]
Wynd wrote an essay about his friend Sebastian Horsley for Yale University Press's book Artist/Rebel/Dandy: Men of Fashion, compiled by Kate Irvin and Laurie Anne Brewer.[citation needed]
He has made several TV appearances, including the National Geographic documentary series Taboo.[citation needed] He has also lectured about cabinets of curiosities, his book and his museum at The Lost Lectures,[20] the British Library,[21] Manchester University,[22] 5x15,[23] and the Barbican.[24]
He is a committee member of the London Institute of 'Pataphysics.[25]