ART MUSEUM LOOKING FOR A BUILDING FINDS CHAGALL MASTERPIECE INSTEAD 

"APOCALYPSE"
8-31 January
at Osborne Samuel, 23 Bruton Street, London W1

Ben Uri, The London Jewish Museum of Art kick-start their search for a new 20,000 sq ft building in the heart of Central London with an exhibition demonstrating the wealth and depth of the BU Collection, including the unveiling of a rare and unseen masterpiece by Marc Chagall.
 
Ben Uri was invited by Osborne Samuel to launch their 2010 exhibition programme at their gallery in Mayfair but the exhibition and catalogue had to change with the acquisition of this lost masterwork. “Apocalypse en Lilas, Capriccio” is Chagall's private response to the end of the war, the Holocaust and his wife Bella's death, most likely painted in March/April 1945.
  
This work has never been recorded outside the archives and never exhibited or published till now.
 
Chairman David Glasser said "This acquisition is a triumph for scholarship and British ethics of hard work and determination. It would have been so easy to conclude that 7 days was all too short for anyone to prepare a case and have the case for funding addressed by The Art Fund and the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund."
 
He continued, "This previously unknown work is Chagall's deeply personal expression of horror and mourning for the Jewish civilisation almost wiped out by the Nazis alongside and merged with grief for his late wife Bella who died 8 months earlier. The news of the mass genocide pouring through the media on the defeat of the Nazis appears to have been the stimulus to bring Chagall back to his easel after 8 months of mourning."
 
"The Art Institute of Chicago, The Musee d'Arte Moderne, Paris, The Israel Museum and now Ben Uri in London are the four museums across the world that are custodians of this hugely important but tiny body of work where Chagall employs a Jewish Christ between 1938 and 1945.
 
If the Jewish Community and London in general ever needed a reason to find an appropriate Central London building for this extraordinary Jewish Museum of Art with its National schools learning programs, its Artists' development programs in education and social health, its extraordinary exhibitions and collection then surely this Chagall is surely it!"
 
 
Artists exhibited are:
 
Jankel Adler, Yaki Assayag, Frank Auerbach, Lazar Berson, David Bomberg, David Breuer-Weil, Moshe Elazar Castel, Marc Chagall, Natan Dvir, Sir Jacob Epstein, Mark Gertler, Josef Herman RA, R.B. Kitaj, Leon Kossoff, Jacob Kramer, Emmanuel Levy, Max Liebermann, Abraham Lozoff, Bernard Meninsky, Jacqueline Nicholls, Lélia Pissarro, Orovida Pissarro, Sophie Robertson, Isaac Rosenberg, Reuven Rubin, D. Simkovitz, Simeon Solomon, Solomon J Solomon RA, Clare Winsten, Alfred Wolmark, Joash Woodrow.

Image:
Marc Chagall (1887-1985)
Apocalypse en Lilas, Capriccio 1945/47
Gouache, Lavis et encre de Chine sur papier
Signée en bas à gauche
51.1 x 36 cm

This painting was acquired as a result of the shared passion of The Art Fund, Lionel Pissarro of GPS Partners, New York and Paris and the generosity and vision of Miriam and Richard Borchard, Morven and Michael Heller and other true and valued partners of the Museum, 2009 Ben Uri Collection, The London Jewish Museum of Art

NOTES FOR EDITORS:

Gallery location: Osborne Samuel, 23a Bruton Street, Mayfair, London W1J 6QG

Exhibition dates: 8th - 31st January 2010

Opening hours: Monday – Friday, 10am-6pm, Saturday 10am-2pm, Sunday, 12-4pm

Admission: FREE

Full colour exhibition catalogue available £15

For further information, interviews with David Glasser, Professor Ziva Amishai-Maisels (who has written extensively on Chagall over thirty years and has assessed the work for the exhibition catalogue) and Gordon Samuel please contact suzanne@benuri.org.uk

High resolution images of all works available. Please contact: suzanne@benuri.org.uk

Press coverage:

New York Times 1 Jan 2010
Sunday Times 3 Jan 2010
Spectator 4 Jan 2010
LA Times 4 Jan 2010
Jewish Chronicle 4 Jan 2010
Evening Standard 5 Jan 2010
BBC R4 Today Programme interview 4 Jan 2010
BBC World Service Europe Today 5 Jan 2010
Londonist 6 Jan 2010
BBC Radio 3 Nightwaves 7 Jan 2010
BBC London News 8 Jan 2010
Financial Times 9 Jan 2010
Culture24 11 Jan 2010