Ben Uri company logo
Ben Uri
Skip to main content
  • Menu
  • Homepage
  • About Ben Uri
  • What's on
  • Visit Us
  • Exhibitions
  • Collections
  • Research Unit - resources
  • BU TV
  • Podcasts
  • Shop
  • Kids Programme
  • Arts and Mental Health
  • Support Us
  • Contact Us
  • Art Shop
Facebook, opens in a new tab.
Youtube, opens in a new tab.
Instagram, opens in a new tab.
Twitter-x, opens in a new tab.
LinkedIn, opens in a new tab.
Send an email
Cart
0 items £
Checkout

Item added to cart

View cart & checkout
Continue shopping
Facebook, opens in a new tab.
Youtube, opens in a new tab.
Instagram, opens in a new tab.
Twitter-x, opens in a new tab.
LinkedIn, opens in a new tab.
Send an email
Menu
Out of Chaos
Ben Uri: 100 Years in London

Out of Chaos : Ben Uri: 100 Years in London

Forthcoming exhibition
  • Overview
  • Works
  • Installation Views
  • Publications
  • Virtual Exhibition
  • Videos
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Bernard Cohen, Untitled (II)

Bernard Cohen b. 1933

Untitled (II)
gouache on paper
39.5 x 77.5
and dated (lower right): Bernard Cohen 1974
1995-11i
@Bernard Cohen
Photo: Bridgeman images
Cohen travelled to New Mexico for the first time in 1969, where he was excited both by the landscape and by Native American ritual dances. Concerned with process in his...
Read more
Cohen travelled to New Mexico for the first time in 1969, where he was excited both by the landscape and by Native American ritual dances. Concerned with process in his art, he is primarily known as an abstract painter, whose complex non-figurative forms have allowed him to express his responses to the world in rich and imaginative terms. His early work contrasted rigid, symmetrical shapes with loosely painted forms floating over, around or beneath them. From the mid-1970s, partly influenced by Abstract Expressionism, his works attempted to relate the process of painting to a range of social and religious rituals inspired both by his traditional Jewish upbringing and by the experiences from his travels. He has also produced an extensive body of prints, which currently employ densely layered, dazzling geometric patterns and motifs.In this painting on paper, Cohen – who describes himself as ‘a storyteller and a creator of pictorial theatre’ – contrasts different organic forms, delineated in black against white, and highlighted with red, to suggest a sense of change, evoking ideas such as cellular division and the process of evolution. The artist has said that through the combination of such shapes he hoped to create an overall image that was new and unique, imbued with different types of visual tension.Five works on paper by Cohen are held in the Ben Uri Collection, where his work has been shown in exhibitions including Jewish Artists at the Slade: Exhibition of Works from the Ben Uri Collection (1992). In 1994–5 Ben Uri hosted a major survey exhibition Bernard Cohen 35 Years of Drawing, which toured to Norwich, Bristol and Birmingham and was opened in Dean Street by Sir Kenneth Robinson, the then Chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain.
Close full details

Provenance

presented by Professor Bernard Cohen 1995

Literature

Rachel Dickson and Sarah MacDougall, eds., 'Out of Chaos: Ben Uri; 100 Years in London' (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2015) pp. 120-121.
Share
  • Facebook
  • X
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr
  • Email
Previous
|
Next
51 
of  67

Related artists

  • Jankel Adler

    Jankel Adler

  • Nirveda Alleck

    Nirveda Alleck

  • Oreet Ashery

    Oreet Ashery

  • Yaki Assayag

    Yaki Assayag

  • Frank Auerbach

    Frank Auerbach

  • Lazar Berson

    Lazar Berson

  • Martin Bloch

    Martin Bloch

  • Dorothy Bohm

    Dorothy Bohm

  • David Bomberg

    David Bomberg

  • David Breuer-Weil

    David Breuer-Weil

  • Marc Chagall

    Marc Chagall

  • Bernard Cohen

    Bernard Cohen

  • Arnold Daghani

    Arnold Daghani

  • Sonia Delaunay

    Sonia Delaunay

  • Shmuel Dresner

    Shmuel Dresner

  • Amy Drucker

    Amy Drucker

  • Natan Dvir

    Natan Dvir

  • Ernst Eisenmayer

    Ernst Eisenmayer

  • Jacob Epstein

    Jacob Epstein

  • Eva Frankfurther

    Eva Frankfurther

  • Barnett Freedman

    Barnett Freedman

  • Yitzhak Frenkel-Frenel

    Yitzhak Frenkel-Frenel

  • Rachel Garfield

    Rachel Garfield

  • Mark Gertler

    Mark Gertler

  • George Grosz

    George Grosz

  • Leo Haas

    Leo Haas

  • Victor Hageman

    Victor Hageman

  • Solomon Alexander Hart

    Solomon Alexander Hart

  • Josef Herman

    Josef Herman

  • Leon Hirszenberg

    Leon Hirszenberg

  • Lily Delissa Joseph

    Lily Delissa Joseph

  • R. B. Kitaj

    R. B. Kitaj

  • Clara Klinghoffer

    Clara Klinghoffer

  • Leon Kossoff

    Leon Kossoff

  • Chana Kowalska

    Chana Kowalska

  • Jacob Kramer

    Jacob Kramer

  • Emmanuel Levy

    Emmanuel Levy

  • Max Liebermann

    Max Liebermann

  • Alfred Lomnitz

    Alfred Lomnitz

  • Ludwig Meidner

    Ludwig Meidner

  • Edwin Mingard

    Edwin Mingard

  • Jacqueline Nicholls

    Jacqueline Nicholls

  • Moshe Oved

    Moshe Oved

  • Daniel Quintero

    Daniel Quintero

  • Sophie Robertson

    Sophie Robertson

  • Isaac Rosenberg

    Isaac Rosenberg

  • Michael Rothenstein

    Michael Rothenstein

  • Arthur Segal

    Arthur Segal

  • Simeon Solomon

    Simeon Solomon

  • Solomon J Solomon

    Solomon J Solomon

  • Chaïm Soutine

    Chaïm Soutine

  • Irma Stern

    Irma Stern

  • Lesser Ury

    Lesser Ury

  • Clare Winsten

    Clare Winsten

  • Alfred Wolmark

    Alfred Wolmark

  • Ezra Wube

    Ezra Wube

  • Zeev Ben Zvi

    Zeev Ben Zvi

Back to exhibition Overview
Back to exhibitions

Be the first to know – Sign Up

Sign up

* denotes required fields

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. If you are not happy with this, you can opt-out below. 

 

Read More

VISIT US

108a Boundary Road, St John’s Wood, London, NW8 0RH

Now open Wednesday to Friday 10 am - 5.30 pm

Please check the dates on What's on.

admin@benuri.org

 

 

Homepage

What’s On

About

Contact

Support

Exhibitions

Collections

Research Unit

Essays / Catalogues

Loans 

BU TV

Podcasts

Health

Kids

Press

Facebook, opens in a new tab.
Instagram, opens in a new tab.
Twitter-x, opens in a new tab.
Youtube, opens in a new tab.
Pinterest, opens in a new tab.
LinkedIn, opens in a new tab.
Vimeo, opens in a new tab.
Artsy, opens in a new tab.
Send an email
Privacy Policy
Accessibility Policy
Manage cookies
Copyright © 2025 Ben Uri
Site by Artlogic

We use cookies to make our website work more efficiently, to provide you with more personalised services or advertising, and to analyse traffic on our website. For more information please read our cookies policy. If you don't agree to the use of our cookies, the quality of your experience of our website may be lessened.

Manage cookies
Accept

Cookie preferences

Check the boxes for the cookie categories you allow our site to use

Cookie options
Required for the website to function and cannot be disabled.
Improve your experience on the website by storing choices you make about how it should function.
Allow us to collect anonymous usage data in order to improve the experience on our website.
Allow us to identify our visitors so that we can offer personalised, targeted marketing.
Save preferences
Close

Be the first to know – Sign Up

Subscribe to our newsletter and be the first to know about everything new at Ben Uri, including the constantly evolving and expansive online content across our exhibitions, collection and research.

 

We value and respect your privacy. Your personal data will be kept private and processed securely, according to our Privacy Policy. If you change your mind anytime, you can unsubscribe directly when receiving a mail from us (the link will be at the bottom of the email) or contact us.

Sign up

* denotes required fields

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. If you are not happy with this, you can opt-out below. 

 

Read More


EnglishFrenchGermanItalianPortugueseRussianSpanish