NEN Gallery

Lesser Ury, Two Girls Walking Along a Street, 1921
Oil on canvas

Lesser Ury was born on November 7, 1861, in Birnbaum, Germany, the son of a baker. In 1878, he was apprenticed to a tradesman, but left a year later to study painting for almost a decade, first in Dusseldorf and then Brussels, Paris, Stuttgart, and Munich, before finally settling in Berlin in 1887.

He held his first exhibition in 1889. In 1893 he joined the Munich Secession of progressive artists in Germany. His main subjects were landscapes, urban scenes, flower pictures and interiors. He is especially noted for his turn of the century paintings of Berlin streets and squares, particularly at night or in the rain. At a time when most painters were working in studios, he painted outdoors, combining features of Impressionism and Expressionism. He often repeated compositions in order to sell them. These hastily-made, inferior copies harmed his reputation as an artist. In 1922, there was an exhibition in Berlin featuring 150 of Ury’s paintings to commemorate his 60th birthday and he was honoured as "the artistic glorifier of the capital" by the Berlin mayor. He died in Berlin on October 18, 1931 and is buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Berlin-Weissensee.

Examples of works by Lesser Ury in the Ben Uri collection
The Stream
Signed
Pastel
34 x 49 cm

Two Figures in a Park
Signed
Lithograph 3/30
27.5 x 19 cm

Examples of works by Lesser Ury in other collections
The Jewish Museum, New York City
At the Freidrichstrasse Station (Am Bahnhof Friedrichstrasse), 1888
Opaque watercolour on board
65.5 x 46.8 cm
Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin
Purchased with funds from the Museumsstiftung Dr. Otto and Ilse Augustin

Harvard Art Museum/Fogg Museum
Man Digging, c. 1882-1884
Grabender Mann
Drawing
Charcoal on dark cream wove paper
actual: 63.3 x 34.7 cm
Deknatel Purchase Fund, 1996.110

Examples of other works by Lesser Ury can be found on line at:
http://www.ury-lesser.com/works.shtml