Ben Uri collection

Collection Loans Programme

Ben Uri Collection Partners

Loans & Exhibitions

Although Ben Uri celebrated its centenary in 2015, our distinctive and world-class collection regrettably remains mostly in store, apart from selected highlights on show and others on loan.

Our current — but temporary — museum space prevents us from effectively displaying temporary exhibitions and our permanent collection together.

The collection comprises over 1400 works across 67 different mediums spanning 120 years by some 440 international artists: 60% émigrés, 29% women.

The artists hail from 34 countries across four continents but principally Europe: 29% British; 16% German; 14% Russian; 13% Polish; 5% American and 3% Israeli.

Master-works by British artists, although many émigrés, include Jankel Adler, Frank Auerbach, David Bomberg, Jacob Epstein, Mark Gertler, Soloman Hart, Peter Howson, Leon Kossoff, Jacob Kramer, Arthur Segal, Simeon Solomon, Solomon J Solomon and Alfred Wolmark.

Master-works by International artists include Avigdor Arikha, Marc Chagall, Sonia Delaunay, George Grosz, Samuel Hirszenberg, Max Liebermann, Maurice Minkowski, Pissarro dynasty, Chaïm Soutine and Lesser Ury.

Holdings in depth of important 20th century artists include: Jankel Adler (7), Frank Auerbach (13), David Bomberg (15), Sonia Delaunay (3), Jacob Epstein (6), Hans Feibusch (10), Barnett Freedman (8), Mark Gertler (10), Josef Herman (14), Jacob Kramer (13), Max Liebermann (4), Bernard Meninsky (9), Lesser Ury (3) and Alfred Wolmark (26).

Within our context the unique width and depth of holdings by émigré artists is the most distinctive feature of the collection and is a principal area of focus of both our curatorial and learning programmes.

Loans

Please use this library of over 1400 works to identify loans of exhibitions or individual works.

Options are:

1) To borrow individual works as part of your exhibition programming.

2) We can reconstruct a number of Ben Uri loan exhibitions including:

  • Soutine and his Contemporaries: from Russia to Paris
  • Josef Herman: Warsaw, Brussels, Glasgow, London 1938-1945
  • Forced Journeys 1933-1945
  • Isaac Rosenberg: Whitechapel at War 1914-1918
  • Alfred Wolmark: a pioneer of British Modernism
  • Julie Held and Shanti Panchal, Regard and Ritual
  • Dorothy Bohm: Ambiguous Realities

3) Ben Uri can curate tailored exhibitions to more accurately reflect your audience by geographical or historical period; around narratives of migration; artistic groups; individual artists; or specific themes (e.g. portraiture or the holocaust).

To discuss further, please contact Sarah MacDougall, Head of BURU and Collections at sarahm@benuri.org.