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Our digital programme continues to expand while the gallery remains temporarily closed for refurbishment.
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LECTURE SERIES
'Immigrants and their Art'
These evenings explore the stories of immigrant artists' journeys and share much that is not widely known about the artists’ lives and impact on their art. This important series reflects the principal focus of immigrants and their contribution to art history of the Ben Uri Research Unit.
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Max Beckmann, Day and Dream, Curt Valentin, New York, 1946
Forging an American Market for German Expressionism
Wednesday, 7 September 2022, 6.30 PM BSTCurt Valentin and Karl Nierendorf, German émigré art dealers who relocated to New York in the late 1930s, played critical roles in creating an American market for German Expressionism during the World War II era. Taking a cue from the 1938 Twentieth-Century German Artexhibition at London’s New Burlington Galleries, they did so by drawing attention to Expressionism’s defamation as “degenerate” in the Third Reich.
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Émigré Artists and Art Dealers in World War II America
Jenny McComas, Curator of European and American Art, Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University (Bloomington, Indiana, USA)This lecture series explores the challenges and opportunities faced by European artists and art dealers who arrived in the United States in the 1930s, fleeing Nazi persecution and occupation. The lectures will explore questions such as: What did the émigrés contribute to American visual culture and how did they shape the wartime and postwar American art market? How did American culture influence the direction of their own work and priorities? What challenges did they face as they established new careers and forged new connections in a new country? What impact did American antisemitism and rhetoric around immigration have on them?
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Forging an American market for German Expressionism
Wednesday, 7 September 2022, 6.30 pm BSTCurt Valentin and Karl Nierendorf, German émigré art dealers who relocated to New York in the late 1930s, played critical roles in creating an American market for German Expressionism during the World War II era. Taking a cue from the 1938 Twentieth-Century German Artexhibition at London’s New Burlington Galleries, they did so by drawing attention to Expressionism’s defamation as “degenerate” in the Third Reich.
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George Grosz, Gefährliche Straße, 1918, oil on canvas
Exiled Artists and in Wartime America
Wednesday, 14 September 2022, 6.30 pm BSTMany prominent European artists-including George Grosz, Jacques Lipchitz, and Marc Chagall-resettled (permanently or temporarily) in the United States following the Nazis' rise to power in Germany or the outbreak of war. It has long been acknowledged that these exiled artists permanently altered the course of American art. This talk focuses on the ways in which curators, gallerists, and critics discussed and promoted the work of exiled artists-especially German and Jewish artists-in wartime America against a backdrop of anti-immigrant sentiment and rising antisemitism.
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Paul Rosenberg: Picasso’s Dealer in America
Wednesday, 21 September 2022, 6.30 pm BSTThe renowned French art dealer, famed for promoting such modernist giants as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, had become a refugee as Paris’s Nazi occupiers turned his home into the “Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question” and looted his gallery stock of modernist paintings. This talk will survey Rosenberg’s efforts to reestablish his business abroad and his interest in promoting American artists (such as Marsden Hartley, Max Weber, and Abraham Rattner) alongside the French Cubists.
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Forthcoming Exhibitions
Our future physical exhibitions planned to open at our premises at Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, 108A Boundary Rd, London, NW8 0RH, when the remedial works are completed
Dates to be confirmed
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Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, Circus, 1964, oil on canvas, Ben Uri Collection © Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust
New Arrivals from Chagall to Wolmark
New Arrivals from Chagall to Wolmark is an exciting and eclectic exhibition marking new acquisitions and long-term loans to the Ben Uri Collection since 2019. This important selection of paintings, drawings, sculpture and lithographs marks the Ben Uri Research Unit’s continuing focus on the Jewish and immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.
This exhibition is dedicated to the memory of gallerist and curator Agi Katz (1938–2021).
A series of events including lectures, virtual exhibitions and an online Issuu catalogue will accompany the exhibition with an online curatorial tour by Ben Uri’s Director Sarah MacDougall.
To read the full press release please click here
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Orovida Pissarro, Ceremonial Dance, 1927, egg tempera on silk, Private Collection, London © The Artist’s Estate
“Sheer Verve”: The Women’s International Art Club
The Women’s International Art Club (WIAC) was founded in Paris in 1898 to give female artists a platform at a time when it was difficult for them to exhibit their work and encourage networking opportunities. The inaugural exhibition, held in London’s Grafton Gallery in 1900, went on to become an annual event until the club was dissolved in 1978.
More than a century after the WIAC’s inception, Ben Uri showcases the club’s “sheer verve”, in the words of Arts Review critic Bettina Wadia (26 January 1963) with work from 22 of its collection artists including Sonia Delaunay, Dora Gordine, Clara Klinghoffer, Laura Knight, Orovida Pissarro and Ottilie Tolansky.
A series of events including lectures, virtual exhibitions and an online issuu catalogue with an essay by WIAC expert Una Richmond, accompanies the exhibition.To read the full press release please click here
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Online exhibition of the week
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Mark Gertler and the Whitechapel Boys
Paintings from the Luke Gertler Bequest & Selected Important UK Collections BURU (the Ben Uri Research Unit) is delighted to present the exhibition, Mark Gertler: Paintings from the Luke Gertler Bequest & Selected Important UK Collections, curated by Sarah MacDougall, the... -
Why Give?
Ben Uri is a registered British charity (280389). We seek and need your donations to be able to fund and expand our work across our 3 principal and distinctive areas of public benefit being:
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Research and digitally record the Jewish and immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900 - including the current;
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Research and commission collection inspired art interventions for the over 70s to enrich their quality of life through digital channels;
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Develop our pioneering first full scale virtual museum and research centre to maximise engagement across a global digital audience.
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