Image: Ben Uri Gallery, London
Ben Uri Gallery is promoting a virtual exhibition devoted to Jankel Adler’s years in Britain between 1940 and 1949. Titled ‘Jankel Adler: A “Degenerate” Artist in Britain, 1940–49’, the exhibition was identified as Ben Uri’s “virtual exhibition of the week” in a newsletter issued on 31 August 2026.
The announcement gives no opening or closing dates for the online presentation, and does not provide a checklist, curatorial statement, participating lenders or details of the works included. It does, however, define the exhibition’s chronological scope as the nine-year period from 1940 through 1949 and places Adler’s British experience at the centre of the presentation.
The title’s use of the word “Degenerate” in quotation marks invokes the language associated with the Nazi campaign against modern art, while also distinguishing that term from the exhibition’s own voice. The available notice does not explain how the exhibition addresses Adler’s classification, his wartime circumstances or his artistic activity in Britain. Those subjects are therefore presented as areas of enquiry suggested by the title rather than as documented claims about the exhibition’s contents.
The online format forms part of Ben Uri’s wider digital programme. The newsletter directs readers to the organization’s website to discover the Adler exhibition alongside more than 80 other exhibitions. No physical venue is specified for this presentation, and the notice does not indicate that the exhibition is accompanied by talks, screenings, publications or other public events.
Ben Uri’s newsletter places the Adler presentation within an institutionally focused programme combining exhibitions with collection and research resources. Elsewhere in the same issue, the organization directs readers to its online collection and research platforms, but those separate listings do not supply additional information about the Adler exhibition itself. They also include unrelated notices about other artists, sales, podcasts and events, which are not part of the Adler presentation.
The announcement provides no further biographical information about Adler, no account of his movements or career, and no indication of whether the exhibition is newly launched or drawn from an existing digital archive. For now, the confirmed details are its virtual format, its focus on Jankel Adler in Britain from 1940 to 1949, and its promotion through Ben Uri’s 31 August newsletter.
