Reinvesting in New Acquisitions and Long-term Loans

The exhibition showcases key recent new acquisitions and long-term loans to the Ben Uri Collection, arranged to reflect both Ben Uri's own history and three principal waves of migration to the UK. The first wave of Jewish migration to the East End, c. 1870-1914 is represented by objects including two rare carved wooden plates — one by Ben Uri's founder Lazar Berson and the second by the Ben Uri Studio, five superb paintings by ‘Whitechapel Boy’ Mark Gertler from the Luke Gertler Bequest (on loan with Art Fund support), and three post-First World War works by fellow ‘Whitechapel Boy’ David Bomberg, including a fine Jerusalem landscape. The so-called ‘Hitler émigrés’, who came to the UK, principally in the mid to late 1930s, are represented by artists including Polish-born Henryk Gotlib, Jankel Adler and Marek Szwarc, German sculptors Benno Elkan and Fred Kormis, Hungarian sculptor Peter Lazlo Peri, and German collagist Kurt Schwitters. The display also includes contemporary works by Iran-born Zory Shahrokhi — part of her commissioned response to the exhibition Liberators: 12 Extraordinary Women Artists from the Ben Uri Collection (2018), and a self-portrait by painter Moich Abrahams, photography by Marion Davies, Irving Penn and Edith Tudor-Hart, and works on paper by Arnold Auerbach, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Solomon Hart, Halina Korn, Marevna, William Rothenstein and Stephen Roth.

For enquiries or to arrange a visit to Ben Uri Library and Archive, please contact admin@benuri.org

The credit lines reflect the ownership of artworks at the time of the original display.