MASTERPIECES FROM THE BEN URI COLLECTION
LESSER URY (1861-1931)
BERLIN STREET SCENE
1921 Oil on canvas
Signed and dated (lower left): 'L. Ury 1921'
LESSER URY
Lesser Ury’s Berlin Street Scene (late 19th–early 20th century) is a masterful evocation of urban modernity, atmospheric mood, and psychological introspection, characteristic of the artist’s oeuvre. A key figure in the German Impressionist movement, Ury diverged from his French counterparts by emphasizing not rural leis-
ure but the emergent spectacle of the modern city. His Berlin scenes of which this painting is a quintessential example capture the charged interplay between anonymity, movement, and the flickering transience of urban life In Berlin Street Scene, Ury depicts a rain-slicked boulevard, likely at dusk or night, illuminated by gas lamps whose reflections shimmer on the wet pavement Figures, often umbrella-bearing and indistinct, dissolve into the surrounding environment, reinforcing a sense of fleeting presence and emotional distance The composition relies on strong contrasts of light and shadow, achieved through a rich, tonal palette that fuses Impressionist brushwork with Symbolist mood Ury’s painterly approach evokes a cinematic immediacy, anticipating the visual language of early Expressionist film. This painting is not merely a cityscape but a meditation on modern existence: alienation, ephemerality, and the sublime beauty of the everyday. Through his portrayal of Berlin as both setting and subject, Ury captures the psychological texture of a rapidly transforming metropolis on the edge of modernity
Impressionist painter and printmaker Lesser Ury (né Leo Lesser Ury) was born into a Jewish family in Birnbaum, then in the Prussian province of Posen (now Kreis Birnbaum, Poland), on 7 November 1861; his father, a baker, died during his childhood and the family relocated to Berlin Ury was initially apprenticed to
a merchant before leaving to study painting at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, and then in a succession of European cities: Brussels, Paris, Stuttgart and Munich. In Paris, he developed a fascination with the modern metropolis and nocturnal urban life, the subject matter for which he is most celebrated He settled in Berlin in 1887, holding his first exhibition there in 1889 Despite a hostile reception, Ury was championed by the artists Adolph von Menzel and Max Liebermann, and was subsequently awarded the Michael Beer prize by the Berlin Academy, which enabled him to visit Italy In 1893 he joined the progressive group of Munich Secession artists, before returning to Berlin in 1901 He subsequently exhibited with the Berlin Secession in 1915 and 1922, when, during a major exhibition of 150 of his paintings, he was honoured as ‘the artistic glorifier of the capital’ by the mayor of Berlin. His rising reputation was marked in 1920 by the publication of a book by Karl Schwarz, part of the series ‘Jüdische Bücherei’. Ury painted in oil and pastel – excelling in the latter medium - and produced landscapes, cityscapes – often in the rain and at twilight - and interiors, painted in an Impressionist manner Lesser Ury died in Berlin, Germany on 18 October 1931 He is represented in international collections abroad including the Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany and Galerie Ludorff, Düsseldorf, Germany; the Hecht Museum, University of Haifa, Israel; and the Ben Uri Collection in the UK
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
COLLECTION: https://benuri.org/collections/
BURU: https://www.buru.org.uk/
