Ben Uri: Audio Adventures

Sonia Boyce was born to Afro-Caribbean parents, who had come to the UK in the 1950s as part of the Windrush generation, in Islington , London, England in 1962. Considered one of the foremost artists of the Black British Art movement of the 1980s, Boyce's work, across a wide range of media and collaborative experience, examines issues of race, class, and gender, particularly with respect to the dev...

Patrick Procktor was born to English parents in Dublin, Ireland in 1936 and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, London from 1958–61. He held his first solo show at London's Redfern Gallery in 1963, which proved to be an instant success, both critically and commercially and in 1964 his work featured in the landmark 'New Generation' exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, the success of which in...

Lucian Freud was born into a Jewish family in Berlin, Germany in 1922; following Adolf Hitler's accession to the German Chancellorship in 1933, the family moved to Britain to escape racial persecution. Freud studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts and the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in Dedham and went on to become one of the most celebrated artists of his generation, descr...

Frank Auerbach was born to Jewish parents in Berlin, Germany in 1931; he was sent to England in 1939 and later attended St Martin's School of Art and the Royal College of Art, also studying in David Bomberg's evening classes at the Borough Polytechnic. In 1956, he held his first solo exhibition at the Beaux Arts Gallery in London, where he exhibited until 1963; He was represented by Marlborough Ga...

Franz Catzenstein (later Francis Matthiesen) was born into a Jewish family in Hanover, German Empire (now Germany) on 24 July 1897 or 1898. He was the director and owner of the eponymous Matthiesen Gallery in Berlin. In 1933, with the rise of Nazism, he first fled to Zurich, Switzerland and then settled in London, England, where he established the Matthiesen Gallery anew, specialising in European...

Francis Bacon was born on 28 October 1909 in Dublin, Ireland, the second of five children of English parents and moved to London in 1926, his emerging homosexuality having severely strained relations with his parents. Ostensibly self-taught, by the 1950s he had become one of the most acclaimed British painters of the twentieth century, with a roster of exhibitions worldwide in his lifetime and pos...

Eva Frankfurther was born into a Jewish family in Berlin, Germany in 1930; following the rise of National Socialism, the Frankfurther family fled to London in 1939; she spent a year at Stoatley Rough boarding school in Surrey, and was afterwards evactuated to Hertfordshire. After the war she studied at St Martin's School of Art, where her fellow students included Frank Auerbach. Quickly disillusio...

Eddie Chambers was born to Jamaican immigrant parents in Wolverhampton, England in 1960. Working with artists such as Keith Piper, Chambers's early exhibitions centred on ideas of 'Black Art', as a racially conscious form of art making, while his later curatorial projects included solo exhibitions of work by Lesley Sanderson, Eugene Palmer, Denzil Forrester, Medina Hammad, Tam Joseph and Frank Bow...

Barnett Freedman was born to Russian-Jewish émigré parents in Stepney, London in 1901. He took classes at St Martin's School of Art before enrolling at the Royal College of Art and later became known as a painter and for his book cover designs and illustrations. Listen to his story here or read the full biography on the BURU database: https://www.buru.org.uk/contributor/barnett-freedman

R. B. Kitaj was born in Chagrin Falls, USA in 1932 into a non-practising Jewish family; after studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Austria and serving in the US Army, he moved to England to study at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford (1958–59), and then at the Royal College of Art, London (1959 –61). Kitaj became a key figure in European and American contemporary painting...

Sin Wai Kin (formerly known as Victoria Sin) was born to a Chinese father and British mother in Toronto, Canada in 1991. Sin moved to London in 2009, where they earned a BA in Drawing from Camberwell College of Arts and an MA in Printmaking from the Royal College of Art. Using performance, printmaking, and speculative fiction, Sin challenges societal norms of desire and identity, deeply influenced...

Sculptor Jacob Epstein was born into a Polish-Jewish family in New York City, USA in 1880 and raised in Manhattan’s multicultural Lower East Side. He moved to London in 1905 and received his first British commission for the facade of the British Medical Association Building on the Strand in 1907 - the first of many highly controversial public commissions - although his work as a portrait sculptor...

Zeinab Saleh was born in Kenya in 1996. She studied at London’s the Royal Drawing School (2014–15) and the Slade School of Fine Art (2016–19). As co-founder of the London artists' collective, the Muslim Sisterhood, Saleh is a pioneer for genuine diversity and promotes Muslim visibility and creativity in the art world. Listen to her story here or read the full biography on the BURU database: https:...

Uzo Egonu was born in Onitsha, Nigeria in 1931 and immigrated to England in 1945, aged 13, to study art in London at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts and at St Martin’s School of Art. Despite only returning to Nigeria once in the 1970s, his painting and printmaking, which blurred the distinction between abstraction and figuration, continued to recall his strong West African and Igbo heritage a...

Sokari Douglas Camp was born in Nigeria in 1958. She immigrated to England in around 1970 to attend boarding school in Totnes, Devon, aged 12. This was followed by a brief period in the USA where she first studied art, then continuing her training in London at the Central School of Art and Design and, later, at the Royal College of Art. Widely exhibited, her work is comprised mainly of large-scale...

Samson Kambalu was born in Malawi in 1975. He moved to England after meeting his wife, a Scottish development worker, later obtaining his MA in Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University (2002–3) and his PhD from Chelsea College of Art and Design (2011-15). The themes of Kambalu's artwork are autobiographical, often serving as a critique of social structures, deriving inspiration from Nyau culture of...

Rotimi Fani-Kayode was born in 1955, in Lagos, Nigeria, moving to Brighton, England in 1966, fleeing the violent events leading to the Nigerian-Biafran Civil War. Following his studies at Brighton College, Seabright College and Millfield School, he graduated with an MFA in Fine Arts and Photography from the Pratt Institute in New York. In 1988, Fani-Kayode, along with a number of other photographe...

Ndidi Emefiele was born in Abuja, Nigeria in 1987. She earned her BA from Delta State University, Abraka in 2007 and later, an MA from London's Slade School of Fine Art (2014–16). Emefiele's figurative art, integrating collage and traditional motifs, and distinguished by lively brushwork and bold colours, is deeply informed by her Nigerian heritage, reflecting a cultural richness. Showing regularl...

Mary Evans was born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1963, and immigrated with her family to north London in 1969. After a period of unsettled return to her homeland during her teens, she returned to England to study fine art at Gloucestershire College of Arts and Technology, and at Goldsmiths College, followed by further study at the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam, Drawing on her upbringing and experiences of migr...

Kirti Mandir, a British citizen of Indian origins, was born in Nairobi, British Kenya (now Kenya) in 1953. He first moved to India in the early 1970s to study art, subsequently immigrating to the UK in the late 1970s. His multifaceted art practice explores emotions and simplicity. Listen to his story here or read the full biography on the BURU database: https://www.buru.org.uk/contributor/kirti-ma...

Bandele ‘Tex’ Ajetunmobi was born in Nigeria in 1921 and was apprenticed to a portrait photographer in Lagos. He emigrated from Nigeria in 1947 aged 26, an outcast due to a childhood disability from polio. He settled in Spitalfields, east London, where he became one of Britain's first Black photographers, capturing the area’s immigrant communities and multi-racial character through photography for...

Aisha Seriki was born in Nigeria in 1998. At the age of 8 her family immigrated from South East Asia to London, England, where she initially studied Global Liberal Arts at SOAS (School of African and Oriental Studies), University of London from 2017–20, prior to pursuing her MA in photography at the Royal College of Art. She specialises in fashion and portrait photography, exploring themes of just...

Artist, theorist, curator, and writer, Olu Oguibe was born in Aba, Nigeria in 1964. After immigrating to London to study for a PhD in Art History, he taught at the University of London, prior to relocating to the USA. His writing and art practice engages with postcolonial theory and histories of non-Western contemporary art studies. Listen to his story here or read the full biography on the BURU d...

Oladélé Bamgboyé was born in Odo-Eku, Nigeria on 15 October 1963. He moved with his family to Glasgow, Scotland in 1975, where he studied chemical engineering at Strathclyde University (1981–85). He later completed an MA in Media, Fine Art, Theory and Practice at the Slade School of Fine Art, London (1996–8). His practice, encompassing a variety of media including traditional photography and video...

Nengi Omuku was born in Warri, Nigeria in 1987, spending her teenage years there until she was 16, after which she moved to England for her A-levels. She trained in fine art at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, graduating in 2012. Omuku's paintings ddelve deeply into themes of gender, cultural roots, and race, with an emphasis on the mental and emotional spaces within an individual and their...