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Alfred A. Wolmark Aaron Wolmark Was Born in Warsaw, Poland in 1877

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Alfred A. Wolmark Aaron Wolmark Was Born in Warsaw, Poland in 1877 www.jewsfww.london ! Alfred A. Wolmark Aaron Wolmark was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1877. He was brought to England by his parents in 1883 and settled initially in Devon where even at this young age he drew and some drawings from this period still exist. In 1894 the family move to Whitechapel in London’s East End where his father ran a tailoring shop. Settling in Fishers Alley, then Leman Street, Whitechapel and later Bow, he encountered environments similar to those in which David Bomberg, Mark Gertler, Isaac Rosenberg and Clare Winsten, were growing up. Wolmark was already a young man of seventeen when he came to the East End, and sights and sounds were very different from rural and isolated (Jewish) life in Devon but it did leave him with an appreciation of rural landscapes which he painted in later years. In 1895 he started at the Royal Academy School of Painting and the next year was awarded the silver medal for drawing and met Anna Wilmersdoerffer who became his first patron and mentor. In 1898 he started his second term at the RA and is thought to have made his way to Amsterdam to visit the Rembrandt exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum. His next decade of work is heavily influenced by Rembrandt. In 1899 during his second term at the RA he adopted the English name Alfred to reduce the biblical and Jewish identification of his name Aaron. Like many others of his time he saw this as a means of minimising discrimination from fellow art students, tutors, future dealers and clients as this was a period of increasing anti-Semitism which was making life more difficult for Jews. However, he was always proud and comfortable with his Jewish origins and retained the name Aaron as his middle name, usually identifying himself as ‘Alfred A. Wolmark’. In 1901 he exhibited his first work at the Royal Academy. 1903 he returned to Poland which at the time had the largest Jewish community in Europe. It was the land of the religious Jew and he stayed immersed in Jewish surroundings and painted there through to February 1905. In the same year his brothers Sam and Adolph, who he had painted a few years before decided to emigrate to the USA. He visited Poland again in 1906 returning to London later that year to exhibit at the Jewish Art and Antiquities exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery. Although he was to become an important pioneer of British modernism adopting and developing the continental use of bright sunny vivid colours in his compositions his early career and first decade was defined by his portraiture of traditional Jewish religious imagery. He remained firmly committed throughout his life to celebrating the rich Jewish heritage both through his early subject matter and in later life as a leading figure of the Ben Uri Art Society now known as Ben Uri Gallery and Museum. 1 www.jewsfww.london ! His decade of often Rembrandtesque portraits included those of religious Jews inside and outside of a synagogue. This is perfectly reflected in his oil on canvas ‘In the Synagogue’ painted in 1906. Wolmark has been described as having Yidishe Neshome (innate passionate Judaismi) and he certainly drew on a range of Jewish experience, perhaps from his formative years in Poland and as an adult painter living in the Jewish community of the East End of London. ‘In the Synagogue’ reflects a Jewish man (perhaps a Rabbi) shown in a prayer shawl, with his head covered, sitting alone at the front of a synagogue (a building for Jewish worship and instruction). Figures are seated in the background, reading, resting, thinking and praying. The main focus, however, is on the person in the foreground, with his pose of great contemplation. This painting combines Wolmark’s skill in creating large compositions, often incorporating numerous sitters, with a deep understanding of the spiritual, ceremonial and practical aspects of Jewish worship present in synagogue settings. 2 www.jewsfww.london ! ! ‘In the Synagogue’ (1906) by Alfred A. Wolmark (1877 – 1961) Oil on canvas There is no obvious indication of the location of this synagogue, but if in London, rather than Poland, it is highly likely that the sitters were drawn from the East End community that Alfred was familiar with. Painted with predominantly dark tones, the picture reflects his commitment to the style of Rembrandt which continued until c1909-10 when he started to experiment with the use of colour which was widely accepted in Europe but not yet in the ‘island’ of Great Britain. Wolmark married Bessie Tapper in 1911 and during his extended honeymoon in Concarneu, Brittany from July to October that summer he painted some 90 paintings which could have been by a totally different and no doubt French artist as they exuded colour and optimism whether still life or seascapes. It was this series of work that secured his place in the annuls of 20th Century British Art as a pioneer of British Modernism. 3 www.jewsfww.london ! However, Alfred never lost his commitment to promoting Jewish culture through his support of Ben Uri, and as late as 1949 he produced ‘The Stiebel’, an oil on canvas representing a place of prayer and study for observant Jews. Aspects of Alfred’s artistic progression will be considered below ! ‘Sabbath Afternoon’ (c.1909-10) by Alfred A. Wolmark (1877 – 1961) Oil on canvas ‘Sabbath Afternoon’ is an oil on canvas and dates from 1909 or 1910 (like many artworks, there is uncertainty over the exact date of completion). It continues Wolmark’s affinity with Jewish themes, the Sabbath traditionally being a day of religious observance and abstinence from work. The painting is also regarded as an important transition work or bridge between his earlier use of subdued colours (as with ‘In the Synagogue’, towards his use of vivid colours, which gave him the nickname ‘King of Colour’. With ‘Sabbath Afternoon’, Wolmark handled paint in a new way and used a lighter palette or set of colours, concentrating these on the table, window and the couple, all occupying the central space of the painting. His use and application of colour differs from that used by Samuel Hirszenberg in a similarly themed work, dating from 1894. In ‘Sabbath Rest’ (also part of the Ben Uri Collection), who also depicts a family group observing the Sabbath. Hirszenberg was twelve years older (born in Lodz, Poland in 1865) and Wolmark would have become familiar with his work whilst in Poland in the early 1900s. Both paintings show the traditional aspects of Sabbath observance, calm contemplation or reading and sharing time together in the afternoon following the 4 www.jewsfww.london ! Saturday morning synagogue service. Each includes important details of Jewish religious observance, Wolmark depicting the Bessamim (ceremonial spice tower) on the table, Hirszenberg, the Sabbath candlesticks with burnt down candles. Both contrast traditional aspects of Jewish life with the modern society which they inhabit. Industrial scenes are glimpsed through the window beyond the confines of the Jewish homes. Hirszenberg depicts an encroaching industrialisation with just one factory chimney visible, as Lodz begins its transition from rural to industrial economy. In contrast, Wolmark depicts a completely urbanised, industrial scene outside the window, factory chimneys and the roofs and chimneys of terraced houses dominating the East End view and highlighted with bright colours. As a man in his thirties by this time, Wolmark was showing both the skill and self- confidence to explore new painting techniques, whilst also sensitively reflecting the contrasts of traditional Jewish life in a changing world. He shows the encroachment into this traditional scene from what must be a noisy and smoky urban street outside the room, but he does not take anything away from the devout scene inside. Wolmark, the emerging modernist painter remained a culturally and religiously sensitive recorder of Jewish life as he encountered it. He was the only Jewish artist to be selected for both for the Exhibition of Jewish Art & Antiquities in 1906 and the ‘Jewish Section’ in the 1914 exhibition ‘Twentieth Century Art: A Review of Modern Movements’ both held at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in the East End. 5 www.jewsfww.london ! ‘Fourteen Illustrations to the Works of Israel Zangwill, vol. 13, The Cockpit’ (1925) by Alfred A. Wolmark (1877 – 1961) Watercolour, pen and ink on paper After a period in America (1919-20), Wolmark returned to London and continued his ‘colourist’ work. This illustration is one of fourteen designed by Wolmark in 1925, for inclusion as reproductions in a deluxe edition of the Collected Works of Israel Zangwill. Zangwill was a writer known as the Jewish Dickens after the publication of his most famous novel, 'Children of the Ghetto' which described Jewish life in the East End of London. ‘The Cockpit’ is a drama, originally published in 1921, where 6 www.jewsfww.london ! the noted author expresses his revulsion at the causes and consequences of the First World War. This illustration for ‘The Cockpit’ is drawn in watercolour, pen and ink on paper. Wolmark chose to show a weeping, Biblical figure surveying a battlefield. A dead soldier lies beneath barbed wire, his helmet beside him and with an artillery gun behind. He uses colour carefully, with dark and strong colours for the mud and the dead man, with lighter colours rising through the drawing, with strong colours again for the head and surrounding motif for the Biblical figure. Through a careful use of form, composition and colour, he produced a drawing which communicated the author’s concern about war, which also reflected his own emotions and used his modernist, colourist skills to advantage.
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