Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.


Alfred Wolmark artist

Alfred Wolmark (ne Aaron Wolmark) was born into a Jewish family in Warsaw, Congress Kingdom of Poland, Russian Empire (now Poland)) around 1877, and immigrated to Devon, England in 1883 with his family, before enrolling at the Royal Academy Schools in London to study art in 1895. In 1911, he rejected his early naturalistic style and Jewish subjectmatter, in favour of a dazzling colourist approach; as a pioneering painter of both the Jewish ghetto and as an early modernist, Wolmark has been called the ‘father’ of the 'Whitechapel Boys', and was the only artist to be included in both the 1906 'Jewish Art and Antiquities Exhibition' and in Bomberg and Jacob Epstein's 'Jewish Section' at the 1914 'Twentieth-Century Art: A Review of Modern Movements' (both Whitechapel Gallery), before lending his support to Ben Uri's first quarter century.

Born: 1877 Warsaw, Congress Kingdom of Poland, Russian Empire (now Poland)

Died: 1961 London, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1883

Other name/s: Aaron Wolmark, Alfred Aaron Wolmark


Biography

Painter Aaron Wolmark was born into a Jewish family in Warsaw, Congress Kingdom of Poland, Russian Empire (now Poland) on 28 December 1877, and immigrated to England with his family in 1883, first to Devon and then to London's East End where his father set up a tailor’s shop. After a brief spell in Kilburn, they turned eastwards again, in 1900, to the more affluent Tredegar Square, Bow, where Wolmark remained until 1903, before setting up his own studio in Kilburn. He trained at the Royal Academy Schools (from 1895), where he won the Silver Medal First Prize for a ‘drawing of a statue or group’. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy of Arts (1901–36), adding the English ‘Alfred’ to his name, the Allied Artists Association (AAA, 1908–16) and the International Society (1911–25), and held his first solo exhibition at the Bruton Galleries in 1905. Wolmark's teenage years in London’s East End and two lengthy stays in his native Poland between 1903–6, had a huge visual and spiritual impact on his early work. For the first 10-15 years of his career, he produced a remarkably mature body of Jewish paintings in the spirit of Rembrandt, ‘the only painter’, he later remarked, ‘who ever […] influenced him’ (Rachel Dickson and Sarah MacDougall eds., Rediscovering Wolmark: a pioneer of British modernism, Ben Uri Gallery, 2004). He often enlisted members of the local Jewish community to model for his Jewish works, dressing them up to disguise their poverty.


Wolmark’s immersion in Jewish subjectmatter continued alongside an ongoing interest in landscape until July 1911 when, after an artistic epiphany on honeymoon in Concarneau, Brittany (where he produced on average one painting a day), he jettisoned his early methods in favour of what he called the ‘New Art’ and embarked upon the pioneering colourist path that he followed for the next two decades. His bold use of colour earned him the nickname, the ‘Colour King’. In 1911 30 of his ‘Decorative Still-Life’ paintings featured in a solo exhibition at the Baillie Gallery while his Concarneau paintings were exhibited at the Goupil Galleries. It is likely that Frank Rutter (influential curator at Leeds Art Gallery, with a keen modernist eye) purchased the painting Bretonne from the latter, which he later included in the Loan Exhibition of Post-Impressionist Paintings and Drawings at Leeds Art Club in June 1913, one of the earliest showings of expressionist work in northern England. Four months later, Rutter also included Wolmark’s work in his survey of Post-Impressionist and Futurists at London's Dore Galleries.


As a pioneering painter of both the Jewish East End community and as an early modernist, Wolmark has been called the ‘father’ of the 'Whitechapel Boys', his work not only paving the way for, but also anticipating that of his now better-known successors (such as David Bomberg and Mark Gertler) who emerged from the ghetto. He was the only artist to be included in both the Whitechapel Art Gallery’s 1906 Jewish Art and Antiquities Exhibition and in Bomberg and Jacob Epstein's groundbreaking 'Jewish Section' at the 1914 exhibition Twentieth-Century Art: A Review of Modern Movements, where he was labelled a ‘British Fauve’. In 1915 he co-founded the JAAS (Jewish Association of Arts and Sciences) with Adrian Wolfe, and completed an abstract stained-glass window for St. Mary’s Church, Slough. His oeuvre began to encompass poster, costume and stage designs (including for two Diaghilev ballets in 1911). In June 1916 Colour magazine reproduced his poster design for 'Hamlet' and in 1917 50 of his ceramics were exhibited at Martyn & Co, Grafton Street. In 1925 Wolmark began a series of pen and ink portrait sketches, mostly of famous sitters, including the Jewish writer Israel Zangwill (known as the Dickens of the Ghetto) for whom he also designed a set of 14 book illustrations (1925). Evacuated from London for most of the Second World War, after his home and studio were destroyed in the Blitz, he latterly began to paint more traditional landscapes inspired by his Oxfordshire surroundings.


Wolmark exhibited regularly with the Ben Uri Art Society, and the Grafton (1911, 1916, 1917) and Whitechapel Galleries (1910, 1914, 1927, 1956). Closely associated with Ben Uri for many years, in 1925, together with Solomon J Solomon, Wolmark presided over the official opening of its first gallery in Great Russell Street, also acting as Vice-President from 1923–56, and as an adviser on purchasing policy. In the 1930s he introduced Cyril Ross and Ethel Solomon (Mrs Robert Solomon) to the Society, who both became pivotal figures in its management. In recognition of his talent and commitment, Ben Uri held exhibitions to celebrate his 70th and 75th birthdays. Despite his success, Wolmark was rejected for membership of both the London Group (1914) and the Royal Academy of Arts (1938), though his post-impressionist work has been compared to his Camden Town Group and Scottish Colourist contemporaries.


Alfred Wolmark died in London, England on 6 January 1961. A memorial exhibition was held at Ben Uri later that year. In 2004 the exhibition Rediscovering Wolmark: a Pioneer of British Modernism was held at Ben Uri Gallery in London, and toured to the Ferens Gallery, Hull. Wolmark's work is held in many UK public collections including the Arts Council Collection, the Ben Uri Collection, the Government Art Collection, and the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Related books

  • Rachel Dickson, ed., From Adler to Zulawski: A Century of Polish Artists in Britain (London: Ben Uri Research Unit, 2020)
  • Samuel Shaw, Aliens at Prayer: Representing Jewish Life in the East End of London, c. 1905, in Samuel Shaw, Sarah Shaw and Naomi Carle, eds. Edwardian Culture: Beyond the Garden Party. Among the Victorians and Modernists, pp. 133-153 (London: Routledge, 2018)
  • Samuel Shaw, The ideal behind the real: William Rothenstein, Alfred Wolmark and the representation of the Whitechapel Jew c. 1905, in Sarah MacDougall and Rachel Dickson, eds., William Rothenstein and His Circle (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2016)
  • Sarah MacDougall, From Warsaw to Whitechapel: an exploration of cultural and artistic identity in the early work of Alfred Aaron Wolmark (c. 1876-1961), in eds., Jerzy Malinowski, Renata Piatkowska, Tamara Sztyma-Knasiecka (Warsaw: Jewish Artists and Central-Eastern Europe, Conferences of the Polish Society of Oriental Art, Vol. III, 2008), pp. 231-240
  • Peter Risdon, Alfred Wolmark in New York 1919-1920: Insights from a Family Archive (The British Art Journal 6, no. 3, 72-74, 2005)
  • Rachel Dickson and Sarah MacDougall, Rediscovering Wolmark: A Pioneer of British Modernism (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2004)
  • Peter Gross, Representations of Jews and Jewishness in English Painting 1887–1914, PhD Dissertation (Leeds: University of Leeds, 2004)
  • Rachel Dickson and Sarah MacDougall, The Whitechapel Boys, (Jewish Quarterly Vol. 51, No. 3, pp. 29-34, 2004)
  • The Ben Uri Story: From Art Society to Museum (London: Ben Uri Gallery – The London Jewish Museum of Art, 2001)
  • Peter Risdon, A Stained-Class Window by Alfred Wolmark in Slough (The Burlington Magazine 142, no. 1165, 228-31, 2000)
  • Irving Grose, Alfred Wolmark, 1877–1961 (London: Belgrave Gallery, 1985)
  • Pictures, Watercolours, Drawings, Prints and Sculpture from the Studio of the Late Alfred Wolmark, exhib. cat. (London: Christie's,1983)
  • Richard Shone, London Impressionists and Wolmark (The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 117, No. 867, pp. 418, 420-421, June 1975)
  • Charles Spencer, Alfred Wolmark, 1877–1961 (Kingston upon Hull: Ferens Art Gallery, 1975)
  • Anthony D'Offay, Alfred Wolmark (London: Fine Art Society, 1970)
  • Charles Spencer, Alfred Wolmark (1877–1961) A Re-assessment (Jewish Quarterly Vol. 18, No. 4, pp. 21-28, 1970)
  • Alfred Wolmark, 1877–1961: Memorial Exhibition of Paintings (London: Ben Uri Art Gallery, 1961)
  • Catalogue of the retrospective exhibition of paintings by Alfred A. Wolmark (London: Leicester Galleries, 1947)
  • Paintings by Alfred Wolmark (London: Cooling Gallery, 1936)
  • Catalogue of portraits of famous people (first series) by Alfred Wolmark (London: Lefèvre Galleries, 1928)

Public collections

Related organisations

  • Royal Academy Schools (student)
  • Ben Uri Gallery and Museum (vice-chairman, vice-president, arts committee member)
  • Jewish Association for Advancement in Arts and Sciences (founder)

Related web links

Selected exhibitions

  • Crossing Borders, Ferens Art Gallery (2018–19)
  • Art Out of the Bloodlands: A Century of Polish Artists in Britain, Ben Uri Gallery and Museum (2017)
  • Rediscovering Wolmark: a Pioneer of British Modernism, Ben Uri Gallery and Ferens Art Gallery (2004–5)
  • The Ben Uri Story from Art Society to Museum: And the Influence of Anglo-Jewish Artists on the Modern British Movement, Ben Uri Gallery and Museum (2001)
  • Modern British and Continental Pictures, Watercolours, Drawings and Sculpture, Christie’s South Kensington (1996)
  • Alfred Wolmark: At the Belgrave Gallery, The Belgrave Gallery (1985)
  • Sculpture: then and now, Mayor Gallery (1983)
  • Jewish Art in Britain 1900–1950, Fine Art Society, Glasgow (1982)
  • Alfred Wolmark, Fine Art Society, London (1970)
  • Alfred Wolmark, 1877–1961, Ferens Art Gallery (1970)
  • Alfred Wolmark: Memorial Exhibition of Paintings, Ben Uri Art Gallery (1961)
  • 40th Anniversary Exhibition: Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture, Ben Uri Art Gallery (1956)
  • Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Art Gallery (1950), (1954)
  • 75th Birthday Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings (1893–1951) by Alfred Wolmark, Ben Uri Art Gallery (1952)
  • 70th Birthday Commemoration Exhibition of Oil Paintings and Pen & Ink Portraits of Famous People by Alfred A. Wolmark, Ben Uri Art Gallery (1948)
  • Retrospective exhibition of paintings by Alfred A. Wolmark, Leicester Galleries (1947)
  • Annual Exhibition of Works by Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Jewish Art Gallery (1935), (1936), (1937)
  • Painting by Alfred Wolmark, London, Cooling Gallery (1936)
  • Portraits of famous people by Alfred Wolmark, London, Lefèvre Galleries (1928–30)
  • Twentieth-Century Art: A Review of Modern Movements, Whitechapel Gallery (1914) Alfred A. Wolmark, Goupil Gallery, London (1912)
  • Alfred Wolmark, Baillie Gallery (1911)
  • Jewish Art and Antiquities Exhibition, Whitechapel Gallery (1906)
  • Bruton Galleries (1905)
  Alfred Wolmark
   
Ben Uri collection

Alfred Wolmark in the Ben Uri collection

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Alfred Wolmark]

Ben Uri library

Publications related to [Alfred Wolmark] in the Ben Uri Library