Alfred Aaron Wolmark

Belgrave Gallery, London
Bought from the above by present owners in the late 1980s

Oil on canvas. Slight frame abrasions in lower right corner, scattered cracquelure throughout. Ultraviolet light unavailable at time of cataloguing.
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Alfred Aaron Wolmark, an immigrant to London at the close of the 19^th century, is considered one of the finest painters of Jewish subjects. Born in Warsaw in 1877, Wolmark arrived in London in 1893, where he enrolled in the Royal Academy for painting. At the time, most Jewish artists often felt compelled to avoid Jewish subject matter, as they strived to integrate into English artistic circles. Wolmark, however, found a wealth of material portraying Jewish life in Europe, the home of his forebearers, and it was in this realm that he achieved some of his greatest success. In the present lot he clearly expresses his admiration for Rembrandt whom he acknowledges as the major influence in his work. It is the artists' earliest known oil painting of a Jewish subject.