LOVE REVEALED

Simeon Solomon and the pre-Raphaelites
11th September - 26th November 2006

A Blockbuster at the Ben Uri

To kick off the New Year, a major international touring exhibition opens at the Ben Uri Gallery, The London Jewish Museum of Art, on 12th September and shows till the 26th November 2006.

The show focuses on the Pre-Raphaelites Brotherhood, an important British art movement of the late 19th and early 20th Century and includes major and celebrated works by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones and Frederick Sandys as well as Simeon Solomon, brother of artists Abraham and Rebecca who were brought up in an emancipated middle class Jewish family in Bishopsgate. Simeon was a prodigious talent and soon became a cult figure within the Pre-Raphaelite’s tightly knit circle.

The show, organised by the Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery, arrives at the Ben Uri Gallery straight from a blockbusting run at the Museum Villa Stuck in Munich and demonstrates Ben Uri’s national and international reputation as Europe’s foremost, dedicated Jewish Museum of Art working in Britain’s mainstream cultural arena.

The Ben Uri Gallery acquired its current St John’s Wood space in June 2002 following the closure of its previous space in Dean Street in 1996. This year, only four years later Ben Uri was awarded ‘Best Museum in the Region’ which is a remarkable achievement and brings huge kudos to the Jewish community. Furthermore the museum this year has been nominated for the prestigious National Sandford Education Award. This is in recognition of Ben Uri’s innovative programming addressing contemporary issues of immigration and how, using the Jewish experience in British and European Art as a model, other ethnic minority groups can maintain and enhance their own cultural and religious identities whilst simultaneously integrating into society as proud British citizens.

This exhibition shows for the first time in London many major works including Rossetti’s seminal work Beata Beatrix (1877) as well as scenes by Solomon from the Daziel’s Bible Gallery, which illustrates subjects from the Old Testament and published by Routledge in 1881.

The show also covers a variety of subject matter and media. There are oil paintings, pen and ink drawings, pencil drawings, watercolours and wood blocks. Subjects by Solomon range from scenes from the Old Testament to traditional Jewish iconography such as Procession with Scrolls of the Law and others, including fine examples from the Ben Uri’s own internationally acclaimed Museum Collection.

The Pre-Raphaelites are fully represented and Burne-Jones’s magnificent An Idyll from 1863 highlights the classic pre-Raphaelite romanticism and hangs alongside and one of Frederick Sandys greatest works, Medea from 1866-68 which reflects Greek and Roman mythology. The visitor is not disappointed as the quintessential Pre-Raphaelite beauties are well in evidence as illustrated.

Simeon Solomon is the central figure of this exhibition and is demandingly and critically assessed within both Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite artistic contexts. It is the first major exhibition and survey of his works since 1906 which given his place in art history is itself quite remarkable. Further remarkable is that some of the great works on show at Ben Uri have not been seen in London, if at all since the 1860s and 1870s when exhibited at the Royal Academy. This exhibition provides a rare and unique opportunity to see a wide survey of Solomon’s work over the artist’s 50 year career illustrated here by his majestic Habet! from 1865 and witness the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites on his work and his on theirs and re-assess his status both within the Pre-Raphaelite circle and 19th Century British Art.

Solomon was a controversial figure both in artistic subject matter, notably the ambiguous sexuality of his figures, and personally where his dissipated life ended in alcoholism and beggary in a workhouse having never been accepted back into Jewish or Victorian society following his arrest for soliciting. Although publicly disgraced some of his finest work was produced in this later period and this important exhibition provides the chance for London to judge whether William Blake Richmond was accurate in his assessment that Solomon was “the greatest genius of our set.”

To accompany this ground breaking exhibition, a 192 page catalogue has been published with essays by leading art historians. This exhibition should not be missed.

The Ben Uri Gallery can be found at 108a Boundary Road, just off the famous Abbey Road. It is open Monday to Thursday from 10am to 5.30pm; Fridays from 10am to 3pm (5.30pm in the summer); and Sundays from 12-4pm. Admission charge is £5.00 with a concessionary £3.00 for students and concessions. Children, Friends of the Ben Uri Gallery and Members of the NACF are free.

This exhibition has been organized by Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery and launched in October 2005 at Birmingham before traveling to Munich and now to London at the Ben Uri Gallery & Museum.