Britain’s oldest Jewish cultural organisation is celebrating its centenary with a blockbuster show of art that reflects the social and art history of the 20th century.
The Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, which began life as an art society founded by emigre Jews in Whitechapel’s ghetto in 1915 and is now based in St John’s Wood, is making a temporary move to Somerset House in the heart of London for the special show.
They are drawn mainly from its own collection of more than 1,300 pieces but also with key loans including Mark Gertler’s Merry-Go-Round from the Tate which will be the centrepiece of a room dedicated to the Whitechapel Boys group of artists and writers of east London at the beginning of the 20th century.
The exhibition of 67 pieces includes masterworks by Jewish artists such as David Bomberg, RB Kitaj and Frank Auerbach and recent acquisitions such as The Interrogation (1838) by George Grosz, reflecting Nazi brutality, and Apocalypse en Lilas which is a rare response to the Holocaust by Marc Chagall.
Ben Uri owns a high number of works by women artists who are well represented in the centenary show which also reflects a new expanded remit of documenting the broader migrant experience with contemporary works by African artists.
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Curator Rachel Dickson said when they analysed their collection,they realised that it was the story of emigres. “To make that relevant to the 21st century, we take the template of the Jewish experience and make it a template for other immigrant communities in London,” she said.
So there are portraits of East End ghetto life and Second World War internment camps but not all the works reflect Jewish experience and not all were by Jews.
But she said the cumulative impression of the show did relate to the persecution and economic fortunes of the two waves of Jewish immigrants, driven to the UK from Russia more than a century ago and then from Nazi oppression from 1933 onwards.
“There are very powerful stories of fundamental issues of identity, belonging and the fight for survival.”
Out of Chaos - Ben Uri: 100 Years in London, presented in association with the Cultural Institute at King’s College, London, is at the Inigo Rooms, Somerset House, from July 2 until December 13, admission free.Reuse content