This dandified portrait of Polish-Jewish émigré artist Alfred Wolmark in formal suit, wing-collar shirt and bow tie and wide-brimmed hat, is likely to date from the early part of his career before he embraced modernism - he wears a similar bow tie in his 1910 Self-portrait in Southampton Art Gallery, although his facial features, including his trademark round-rimmed spectacles seen here, remain consistent with his appearance throughout his career, even into old age. Wolmark's pose, wearing yellow gloves and holding a walking stick at a diagonal angle with one hand, dangling a cigarette nonchalantly with the other, may be a nod to his own portraiture which made frequent use of this dramatic diagonal device, notably in his Portrait of Mrs Ethel Solomon in Riding Habit (1909, on loan to Ben Uri Collection), in which the sitter carries a riding crop and also sports yellow gloves, as well as later portraits including The Fencer (c. 1914, current whereabouts unknown) and Portrait of Dottie Konstam (aka Mrs. Alfred Kohnstamm, 1915, Private Collection). Wolmark appears in many other portraits in the collection covering most of his career including an early Self-Portrait (1902), a small cameo portrait mischievously included in the background (upper left) of his monumental painting, The Last Days of Rabbi ben Ezra (1905), a caricature in Alfred Adrian Wolfe's cartoon of the 1917 art committee, and in later portraits by Polish-Jewish émigré Max Sokol (c. 1939) and Ben Uri's longstanding Treasurer Cyril Ross (c. 1950s). Wolmark also completed a reciprocal oil of Borough Johnson (current whereabouts unknown). Both painters were members of the 'Faculty', an independent organisation encompassing painting, commercial art, photography, architecture, printmaking, sculpture, design, drama, literature, music, crafts and even dancing. Founded in London W1 in 1921, its influential and assorted patrons included Israel Zangwill, Sir Henry Wood. and G. K. Chesterton.