Acquisition of Emmanuel Levy's Crucifixion, 1942 by the Ben Uri Gallery.

Ben Uri Gallery, The London Jewish Museum of Art, is delighted to announce the acquisition of an important painting by the artist Emmanuel Levy. This unique work represents a significant addition to the Ben Uri Permanent Collection and an important moment of protest in Anglo-Jewish art against the reluctance of Britain to recognise and act against the tragedy of the Holocaust taking place in mainland Europe.

Painted at the heart of the Second World War, the work depicts Christ on the cross with the word ‘Jude’ (‘Jew’) written in blood red above his head. Row upon row of white crosses stretch into the distance over the landscape beneath the cross, echoing the Crucifixion itself. Levy powerfully combines Jewish and Christian iconography in Crucifixion: the white crosses mark Christian graves and yet Christ himself is draped in a Jewish prayer shawl and tallit (phylacteries) are wrapped around his left arm. The white crosses take on a complex double meaning, therefore: traditional symbols of Christian belief and ritual, they nevertheless evoke here the millions of Jews who were dying in the Holocaust at the time this work was painted. The clustering of the crosses is a reproach on many levels, for it is the predominantly Christian population of Britain to whom Levy addresses his heartfelt protest.

Crucifixion represents a welcome continuation of a series of major acquisitions that the Ben Uri has made in recent years. The museum has focused its acquisitions policy on important works by Anglo-Jewish artists, ranging from Solomon J. Solomon to Mark Gertler and Jacob Epstein, and Emmanuel Levy has always had a key place at the core of the Ben Uri Permanent Collection: his Two Rabbis with Scrolls of the Law is one of its most popular and celebrated works.