MAKING WAVES: MASTERPIECES OF MODERN BRITISH ART
12th May – 22nd June 2003

The Ben Uri Gallery is delighted and honoured to host the first 
public exhibition of Making Waves: Masterpieces of Modern British Art from a European Trust, one of the highlights of the Museum's 2003 exhibition schedule. This exhibition features some 25 masterpieces by Modern British artists and represents a wonderful opportunity to reappraise the contribution to the development of modern European art by a broad range of twentieth-century British artists. 

The exhibition has been curated by the eminent art historian and London gallery owner Dr. James Hyman, and the artists featured represent a roll-call of famous names: from Burra to Bomberg, Wadsworth to Nevinson, Heron to Hepworth, Scott to Sutherland, and many more. Of particular note are Nevinson’s From a Paris Plane; Wadsworth’s The English Channel; Wood’s Window at Marseilles; and Lanyon’s Beach Wind. 

The Trust’s collection has been built up over many years and a guiding light behind its formation is one of Europe’s most distinguished Jewish collectors and patrons of the arts. One element that is common to many of the works is that of water, thus the title Making Waves: Masterpieces of Modern British Art from a European Trust, reflecting not just the theme of water as a central feature of many of the images, but more importantly highlighting the pivotal impact that these artists had on the development of Modernism in Britain and abroad during the twentieth century.

Richard Aronowitz-Mercer, the Museum's Director, says: “The Ben Uri Gallery’s permanent collection of works by Anglo-Jewish artists is one of the most sustained and celebrated of its kind in the world. Our aim is that this exhibition will illuminate the other side of the coin, showing major works by those artists who were contemporaries of their Jewish counterparts represented in our collection, such as Bomberg, Epstein, Gertler, Kramer, Auerbach, Kossoff or Kitaj. We have never before organised an exhibition devoted to these artists and Making Waves: Masterpieces of Modern British Art from a European Trust, is a timely redressing of this balance and a rare opportunity to view this unique body of work in its first public exhibition in this country.”