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Cosmopolis: Émigré Art Dealers in 20th Century Britain
Ben Uri Gallery is delighted to announce the upcoming exhibitionCosmopolis: Émigré Art Dealers in 20th Century Britain. Following the rise of Nazism and chaos of global warfare in the 1930s and 1940s, over 50 art dealers, largely but not exclusively Jewish, were driven out of Continental Europe to seek refuge in Britain. Settling in London, they infiltrated existing British art networks and formed an important part of the artistic émigré network, working in existing galleries, as well as founding new ones. Their presence had a disruptive effect on the insular British art world of the 1930s, and over three decades they played a major, but still largely unacknowledged, role in transforming London from ‘artistic backwater’ to a world art capital to rival New York and Paris. This exhibition offers an episodic history, telling stories of selected individual art dealers, the artists they promoted, and the spaces they created for artistic exchange and dissemination. It also reflects on how their own experience of forced migration influenced their professional decisions and choices.
Focusing on the three decades from 1933 to the early 1960s, the exhibition identifies four key areas of activity or impact: the introduction of German modernism to a largely indifferent and Francophile British public (Carl Braunschweig and Alfred Flechtheim); the opening of new galleries and sustaining of Britain’s émigré artists in the culturally deprived but reckless atmosphere of the Blitz (Jack Bilbo, William Ohly, Lea Bondi and Paul Wengraf); the postwar rebuilding of London’s devastated art market in on an international footing (Erica Brausen, Gimpel Fils and Marlborough Fine Art); and the art dealer as philanthropist, supporting artists outside of the commercial gallery space (Henry Roland and Gustav Delbanco, Halima Nalecz and Mateusz Grabowski).
Focusing on the three decades from 1933 to the early 1960s, the exhibition identifies four key areas of activity or impact: the introduction of German modernism to a largely indifferent and Francophile British public (Carl Braunschweig and Alfred Flechtheim); the opening of new galleries and sustaining of Britain’s émigré artists in the culturally deprived but reckless atmosphere of the Blitz (Jack Bilbo, William Ohly, Lea Bondi and Paul Wengraf); the postwar rebuilding of London’s devastated art market in on an international footing (Erica Brausen, Gimpel Fils and Marlborough Fine Art); and the art dealer as philanthropist, supporting artists outside of the commercial gallery space (Henry Roland and Gustav Delbanco, Halima Nalecz and Mateusz Grabowski).
Wed to Fri, 10am - 5.30pm
108A Boundary Road, St John’s Wood, London NW8 ORH NW8ORH
Wed 26 Jun to Fri 26 July
Website:
www.benuri.org
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