Rediscovering Wolmark: A Pioneer of British Modernism
Forthcoming exhibition
The Celibates' Club, 1925
watercolour, pen and ink on paper
33 x 21 cm
signed and dated (lower right): Wolmark 1925
1987-438iii
Alfred Wolmark estate
Photo: Bridgeman images
This watercolour is the fifth in a series of fourteen book illustrations Wolmark made to accompany the complete works of Israel Zangwill (1864-1926), the foremost Anglo-Jewish writer of his generation....
This watercolour is the fifth in a series of fourteen book illustrations Wolmark made to accompany the complete works of Israel Zangwill (1864-1926), the foremost Anglo-Jewish writer of his generation. Known as ‘the Jewish Dickens’, Zangwill’s best-known novel, Children of the Ghetto (1892), vividly described the Whitechapel slums; he also wrote the play The Melting Pot (1908) depicting American Jewish immigrant life and its rich mix of cultures. Both Wolmark and Zangwill were closely associated with Ben Uri from the early 1920s, Zangwill as President in 1922-23, and Wolmark as Vice President for almost a quarter of a century, from 1923-56.