ALFRED AARON WOLMARK (BRITISH 1877–1961)
TWO WOMEN IN GREEN
£9,450
Auction: 15 JANUARY 2025 FROM 10:00 GMT
Description
signed with monogram and dated 19, oil on canvas
Dimensions
61.5cm x 51.5cm (24 ¼in x 20 ¼ in)
Footnote
Wolmark was born in Warsaw, but Jewish persecution forced his family to relocate to London in the 1880s. Little is known of his early life: the Wolmarks lived in Spitalfields, where the young Alfred’s artistic talent must have been recognised, as by 1895 he had entered the Royal Academy Schools. His early works were academic depictions of Jewish religious life.
When honeymooning in Concarneau, Brittany, Alfred Wolmark had a revelatory encounter with post-impressionist French art and was ‘reborn’ a colourist. He began to simplify forms into flattened planes, and his palette took on a fauvist intensity. Two Women in Green emerges from this period of avant-garde originality which endured throughout the 1910s. He worked from a north London studio developing a personal brand of expressionism, which he also applied to designs for pots, stained glass, and interior and theatre sets. He remained friendly with Jacob Epstein and Sickert’s London Group, and became particularly close with Henri Gaudier-Brzeska.
The repetition of the Two Women in Green’s sculptural forms suggests the influence of decorative arts, as well as an interpretation of Futurism propounded by David Bomberg, rendered with Wolmark’s simplified jewel-toned palette. This work dates to the same year Wolmark visited New York, where an exhibition of his pictures was held at the Kervorkian Gallery between 1919-20.