Alfred Adrian Wolfe was born to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents in Bethnal Green, London in 1891. He was heavily involved in societies related to arts, culture, and politics, such as the Jewish Association of Arts and Sciences.
Designer and artist, Alfred Adrian Wolfe (born Woolfstein) was born to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents in Bethnal Green, east London in 1891. In 1911 at the age of 20, he was recorded as living in nearby Hackney, London, working as a wallpaper designer.
Information about his life and career is limited, but his humorous cartoon, The Arts Committee Meeting (Ben Uri Collection), shows that he was a committee member of the Arts Section of the Jewish Association of Arts and Sciences (J.A.A.S.), alongside Polish immigrant painter, Alfred Wolmark, in London in 1917. The JAAS had its roots in an earlier informal salon called the Shletneils Club, which met at the home of Mrs. Moses Zangwill (mother to the famous Anglo-Jewish novelist, Israel Zangwill), and which welcomed young Jewish authors, musicians, painters, dramatists and poets. Like the earlier club, the JAAS also comprised various sections dedicated to literature, art, music, drama and science, but perhaps Wolmark, who was in charge of the arts section, had the largest presence. Wolfe’s cartoon shows a meeting of the Arts Section in 1917, with Wolmark, seated on the far right, recognisable with his distinctive dark, flowing mane of hair and spectacles, as he thumps the table to make his point, while the others shown are a Mr. Rebekoff, Wolfe himself, Meyer Klang, Isaac Snowman and 'Whitechapel Boy', Morris Goldstein.
Alongside his wife, Anna, Wolfe was also a member of the Ethical Society in London (Anna sat on its Fine Arts Committee and performed at Conway Hall with her string quartet in the 1920s). Possibly through Anna, Wolfe was friendly with the Suffragette campaigner Sylvia Pankhurst and, according to his obituary, painted the banner used at her meetings. His dedication to political causes was exemplified again in 1936, when he wrote twice under the name ‘Alfred A. Woolfstein’ to the Jewish Chronicle; in January he defended his decision to attend a German circus, and in April he demanded the decentralisation of the Jewish Board of Guardians in order to make access to help more accessible for ‘really deserving poor Jews’. By 1944, the year in which he officially changed his name to its anglicised form, he was living in Cambridge.
Wolfe later became a figure of note in Clacton, Essex. While chairman of the Freeholders Association, a position he held for nine years, he organised the construction of the sea wall at nearby Brooklands in 1951, which was locally referred to as ‘Adrian’s Wall’. In 1969, a retrospective of his drawings and watercolours, including The Old Philosopher (Ben Uri Collection), was held at Leighton House in Kensington, London W8. Inspired by William Morris’ socialist ideas, Wolfe also created a posthumous portrait plaque of Morris, which he donated in 1969 to Essex University’s Morris Tower on the main campus in Colchester.
Alfred Adrian Wolfe died in Clacton, Essex, England in January 1975 at the age of 83, following a long illness. His work is represented in the UK public domain in the Ben Uri Collection.