Ben Uri’s core objective is to globally provide unparalleled, scholarly reference resources on the wide Jewish, Refugee, and Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900 to students, researchers, academics, critics, art market professionals and collectors and an ever-growing interested public.
Ben Uri Gallery was founded in 1915 in the economically poor but culturally rich district of Whitechapel in East London, by a Russian-born, Paris-based, Jewish artist and craftsman Lazar Berson, to offer support Jewish artists working outside the cultural mainstream. It lost its rented gallery in 1996 following the sale of the building it was housed in.
On reopening in 2002, Ben Uri’s remit has expanded to focus on the wider refugee and immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900. Following its centenary exhibition in 2015 held at Somerset House the museum rethought its future given the harsh reality of being one of the over 50% of UK museums generating less than 5,000 visitors a year which in London is unsustainable.
In 2018, the museum published a seismic shift in positioning, prioritising digital engagement and dissemination over physical and prioritising scholarship, available via its expansive digital resources, as its principal focus with the Ben Uri Research Unit (BURU) offering an umbrella for all its activities.
