Staff

Sarah MacDougall (MA, University of Reading) has been appointed Director of Scholarship and took up her position on 1st January 2024. She was previously Director and Head of Collections and the Ben Uri Research Unit (BURU) and has been a curator at Ben Uri since 2002. She is the former Eva Frankfurther Research and Curatorial Fellow for the Study of Émigré Artists (2011–2016). Her solo exhibitions curated include Refugees: The Lives of Others (2016); Refiguring the Fifties: Eardley, Fell, Frankfurther, Herman, Lowry (2013–2014); Chaïm Soutine and his contemporaries (2012); Josef Herman: Warsaw, Brussels, Glasgow, London, 1938–44 (2011). Collaborative exhibitions include: Alfred Cohen: An American Artist in Europe (2020); Jankel Adler: A “Degenerate” Artist in Britain, 1940–1949 (2019), Bomberg (2017–18), Out of Chaos (2015); Max Weber (2014);‘Uproar!’: The First 50 Years of The London Group (2013); Forced Journeys: Artists in Exile, 1933–45 (2009–10), Whitechapel at War: Isaac Rosenberg and his Circle (2008). Sarah has developed and edited the Ben Uri Collection, Eva Frankfurther and BURU online websites. She co-supervises PhD candidates (on David Bomberg), with London South Bank University, and (émigré art dealers), Kingston University.

Sarah is a Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies (London University) committee member, co-editing Yearbook 19 (Brill, 2019), and publishing on Ganymed and Oskar Kokoschka’s “King Lear”. She has contributed widely to publications including, most recently, on émigré art teachers, in Insiders Outsiders: Refugees from Nazi Europe and their Contribution to British Visual Culture (Lund Humphries, 2019).

 She has lectured widely at institutions including the Courtauld, Imperial War Museum, NPG, Reading University, Senate House (London University), Tate Britain and Whitechapel Art Gallery. Sarah is the author of a biography of Mark Gertler (London: John Murray, 2002) and a Gertler catalogue raisonné is in progress (Yale University Press), as well as being guest curator of the Gertler room at Tate Britain (2019). Recently, she collaborated on a Gertler project with Prof. Aviva Burnstock (Courtauld Institute of Art), with upcoming papers (BAPCR conference, Wallace Collection, 2020) and Paul Mellon Journal (due 2020).

A selection of Sarah MacDougall's publications and papers.

Irene completed her MA in Russian literature and culture at the University of Udine, Italy in 2013. For her dissertation, she translated Nadezhda Mandelshtam’s memoirs on Anna Akhmatova. She subsequently attended a postgraduate course at the Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, her studies focusing on various aspects of Russian culture, including Russian art of the 20^th century. She spent several years working as a teacher in Moscow, before moving to London and earning her MA in History of Renaissance Art from the Courtauld Institute in 2019. She carried out research as a volunteer for the Courtauld Prints and Drawings Room and participated in the Art UK Sculpture project, before joining the Ben Uri Research Unit in 2020. Currently, alongside her Research Officer role, she attends a 3-year course on painting conservation near Venice.

Emily is a PhD candidate in Visual Cultures, based at the Ben Uri Gallery and Museum and Queen Mary, University of London, funded by the London Arts and Humanities Partnership. Her thesis explores the women curators, collectors, donors and administrators who shaped the Ben Uri – including Ethel Solomon, Erna Auerbach and Alice Schwab. Her research uncovers the work of these women facilitators, considering how they supported the production and dissemination of work by a cohort of emigré(e) artists fleeing Nazi Europe for Britain from the 1930s and beyond.

Emily has worked as a Curator and Exhibitions Manager in museums, specialising in exile and migration. She was previously a Curator at the Imperial War Museum responsible for Holocaust and Genocide History, and also held the post of Research Officer, where she was project manager and researcher on Whose Remembrance?, an AHRC-funded project exploring the experiences of people in the British Empire during two world wars. Emily was Curatorial Intern (Judaica) and Exhibitions Manager at the Jewish Museum New York and Curator of the Sarah Rose Collection of work by David Bomberg and his students at the Borough Polytechnic, held at London South Bank University.

Emily holds a MA in History of Art (modern art) from the Courtauld Institute of Art (Distinction) and a MA in Cultural Heritage Studies from UCL (Distinction).

Clare completed her PhD in the Department of Art History, Curating and Visual Studies at the University of Birmingham in 2021. Her research analysed the reception of classical visual culture in nineteenth-century industrial Britain, focusing on Birmingham. Clare now works in digital collections, and as an independent researcher.

Lynn supports the Ben Uri team in a freelance capacity on management and operational issues. She is also a Career Development Mentor to our interns. 

 For 25 years, Lynn’s consulting and coaching practice has helped facilitate individual, team and organisational development in a wide variety of environments, working with clients of all types and sizes in the arts, heritage and wider not-for-profit sectors. Her work is informed by years of experience as a hands-on trustee of several charities, and through leading graduate/post-graduate modules in the creative industries. Lynn’s client portfolio includes: National Trust, Film and Video Umbrella, Imperial War Museum North, National Maritime Museum, Design Museum London, Theatre Absolute, Guild of St George, Canal & River Trust, Samaritans and The Children's Trust.