‘Uproar!’ The Ben Uri gallery punches above its weight

Last year saw the centenary of the London Group, a broad-based exhibiting body set up in a time of stylistic ferment in the art world as an independent alternative to the closed shops of the academies. Formed from the amalgamation of the Allied Artists’ Association and the Camden Town Group, it boasted such notable founder members as Lucien Pissarro and Walter Sickert, while Jacob Epstein is credited with naming it. Inevitably, the London Group has gone through innumerable highs and lows in its 100-year history, yet the mere fact that it still exists is testament to the enduring need for such an independent collective. The Ben Uri, itself an outsider organisation, was founded in London’s East End Jewish ghetto in 1915, two years after the LG, also (as Ben Uri chairman David Glasser points out) ‘in response to establishment prejudice and exhibiting restrictions’. It was dedicated to giving young Jewish artists a chance, and among its first stars were David Bomberg, Epstein, Mark Gertler and Jacob Kramer. The overlap with the LG is at once apparent: all four are featured in the Ben Uri’s fascinating exhibition. It was a sensible move to concentrate on the first 50 years of the LG and not to attempt the full 100: the early years are by far the most interesting in the group’s history, and the format of selecting one artist to cover each year allows the exhibition to have a coherence and cogency that is itself impressive, given the somewhat sprawling and all-inclusive nature of this exhibiting body. Of course it would be possible to quarrel with the selection — I personally would have dispensed with Roger Fry, Duncan Grant, Rupert Lee, Edna Manley, Hans Feibusch and Dorothy Mead, and would have liked to see substituted John Nash, William Gear, Craigie Aitchison, Leonard Rosoman, Patrick George and Anthony Eyton.