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Welcome to Ben Uri
WE CELEBRATE, RESEARCH AND RECORD THE RICHLY DIVERSE JEWISH, REFUGEE AND wide IMMIGRANT CONTRIBUTION TO BRITISH VISUAL CULTURAL SINCE 1900
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The Jewish, refugee and wide immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900
BEN URI is a leading, distinctive and focussed digital resource enhancing its vibrant gallery programming in St. John’s Wood, North West London.
Ben Uri’s core objective is to globally provide unparalleled, scholarly reference resources on the wide Jewish, Refugee, and Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900 to students, researchers, academics, critics, art market professionals and collectors and an ever- growing interested public.
Ben Uri Gallery was founded in 1915 in the economically poor but culturally rich district of Whitechapel in East London, by a Russian-born, Paris-based, Jewish artist and craftsman Lazar Berson, to offer support Jewish artists working outside the cultural mainstream. It lost its rented gallery in 1996 following the sale of the building it was housed in.
On reopening in 2002, Ben Uri’s remit has expanded to focus on the wider refugee and immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900. Following its centenary exhibition in 2015 held at Somerset House the museum rethought its future given the harsh reality of being one of the over 50% of UK museums generating less than 5,000 visitors a year which in London is unsustainable.
In 2018, the museum published a seismic shift in positioning, prioritising digital engagement and dissemination over physical and prioritising scholarship, available via its expansive digital resources, as its principal focus with the Ben Uri Research Unit (BURU) offering an umbrella for all its activities.
Today, Ben Uri hosts four websites:
- Benuri.orgis the ‘mothership’ that links all three sites and, additionally, offers over 70 online exhibitions, 100 podcasts and films, as well as new, expanding content featuring relevant, open-source PhD theses and dissertations, alongside a growing reference resource of focused essays and articles.
- Buru.org.ukhas published some 1,000 profiles of individuals from across a dozen different professions within the arts from some 100 countries of birth. The majority to date are European. This resource is fully searchable across a myriad of fields.
- Diaspora-artists.netoriginated by Professor Eddie Chambers, has published some 2,500 profiles reflecting the Black and Asian contribution. Benuricollection.org.uk presents the museum’s collection of some 900 works by some 400 artists from over 40 different countries of birth. The site is fully digitised and searchable
- The collection site reflects its academic focus and is the inspiration of the museum’s scholarship and as well as 4 exhibitions a year in its Gallery. It supports a large loan programme and tours exhibitions and lends works to museums nationally and internationally.
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Go direct and explore our extensive variety of programmes
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READ OUR LATEST NEWS
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BURU Announces the New Academic Steering Committee
Professor Burcu Dogramaci , Munich University Professor Dorothy Price , Courtauld Institute of Art Dr Tom Stammers , Durham University Ariela Braunschweig, MA , Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project Foundation... -
BU launches guide on Bloomberg Connect
Ben Uri launches new digital guide to Enrich Both Onsite and Offsite Visits The free guide joins more than 100 cultural institutions around the globe on the Bloomberg... -
BU 2023 exhibiting in London, the UK, Europe, the USA and via benuri.org globally
Ben Uri’s digital programme offers a huge range of options on, and through, benuri.org . September 2022, Ben Uri was honoured to be invited to join the exclusive World Art... -
BU elected to the World Art Foundations
18 October 2022Ben Uri is honoured to have been elected into the world art foundations association. Chairman David Glasser attended their recent conference in Milan and he reported “It was one of... -
BU tours Chagall across Europe
16 October 2022More details soon.
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3D Exhibitions
3D VIRTUAL GALLERIES In each exhibition you can navigate your journey through replica virtual galleries, enjoying an authentic exhibition experience. This unique digital perspective allows the artwork to be seen... -
Jankel Adler
Mother and Child II, 1941oil on canvas
78.1 x 57.1 cm -
Zory Shahrokhi
Revolution Street 2fabric, charcoal and soft pastel on paper
57 x 82.5 -
Jankel Adler
A 'Degenerate' Artist in Britain, 1940-49Marking the 70th anniversary of the artist's death, Jankel Adler: A 'Degenerate' Artist in Britain, 1940-49 is the first museum exhibition of Adler's works in Britain since the Arts... -
Rothenstein's Relevance
Artist, writer, teacher and consummate networker, Sir William Rothenstein was a leading British artist in the years before the First World War and a highly influential and well-connected figure throughout... -
Migrations
Masterworks from the Ben Uri CollectionBen Uri is delighted to be working in partnership with GARAS and Gloucester Museum and Gloucester City Council to present the exhibition Migrations: Masterworks from the Ben Uri Collection (3rd... -
Elsa Fraenkel
1892 - 1975 -
Henry Inlander
1925 - 1983 -
Maurice Sochachewsky
1918 - 1969 -
Judy Chicago & Louise Bourgeois, Helen Chadwick, Tracey Emin
CatalogueBorn into a left-wing, politically-active Jewish family in Chicago in 1939, Judy Cohen grew up in a household in which human rights and values were issues of principle, and the... -
Chaïm Soutine and his Contemporaries: from Russia to Paris
CatalogueThis is the catalogue of the exhibition, Chaïm Soutine and his Contemporaries: from Russia to Paris celebrating Ben Uri's recent acquisition of Soutine's La Soubrette, c.1933. The exhibition unveils this... -
'Uproar!': The first 50 Years of the London Group 1913-1963
CatalogueAn overview and critical assessment of The London Group's turbulent early history and an equally important period in British art. Formed in 1913 from an amalgamation of the Camden Town... -
WAYS INTO ART: OVERVIEW
Arts and Health: Films on the Ben Uri Arts and Health Institute (BUAH) 30 June 2020First of five films: An overview of the Ways into Art programme. -
FEMALE PAINTERS IN REFIGURING THE 50S EXHIBITION
Artist Focus 17 December 2014Curator Sarah MacDougall explores the connections between the female painters whose works form part of the exhibition, Refiguring the 50s. She talks about Joan Eardley, Sheila Fell and Eva Frankfurther. -
JUDY CHICAGO TOURS HER EXHIBITION AT BEN URI GALLERY AND MUSEUM
Artist Focus 8 March 2013Shortened version of the Judy Chicago tour of the Ben Uri exhibition, Judy Chicago and Louise Bourgeois, Helen Chadwick, Tracey Emin: A Transatlantic Dialogue. Judy Chicago is accompanied by contemporary... -
BEN URI: ART, IDENTITY AND MIGRATION SEMINAR AT SOUTHAMPTON UNIVERSITY
Exhibition Focus 16 April 2014Head of Collections Sarah MacDougall and Ben Uri Chairman David Glasser present their research Art, Identity and Migration — The Spielberg Question, in a seminar at Southampton University on 29th...
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