Alfred Aaron 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.
