Description

Painting description:

This painting of a hayrick on a sunny day was painted while Alfred Wolmark was living and working in France in 1911. He was a friend of Monet, painted with him on occasion. From this painting we can see Monet’s influence through the colours, textures and subject.

Artist Biography:

Alfred Wolmark RA, was a Polish painter and decorative artist. He was a Post Impressionist and a pioneer of the New Movement in Art. Wolmark was born into a Jewish family in Warsaw. He emigrated to London and became a British citizen. He studied at the Royal Academy Schools.

Returning briefly to Poland in 1903, he painted works based on Jewish historical subjects. His first one-man exhibition was held at the Bruton Galleries in 1905. Wolmark’s work underwent a dramatic change around 1910, influenced by the first exhibition of Post-Impressionist pictures in London, and by a visit to Concarneau in Brittany. He kept to traditional genre, and transformed his subjects through the use of flattened forms, built up with a heavy impasto. His daring use of bright colour earned him the title of ‘The Colour King’, and was combined with his decorative skills in the design of pottery and stained glass, as well as theatre designs, including two for Diaghilev ballets. One of the Founders of the Ben Uri Art Society, Wolmark’s memorial exhibition was held at the Ben Uri Gallery in 1961.

In 1911, under the influence of modern French painting, he executed a series of studies of Breton fisherfolk and harbour life, 1911. He worked in the areas of interior decoration, the theatre, and stained glass, 1911-15. He made a stained glass window for St. Mary’s Church in Slough in 1915.

He painted a series of cityscapes in New York city, 1919-20. He held many exhibitions in London, New York, and Paris, including portrait drawings at the Lefèvre Galleries, 1928. A retrospective of his work was held at Ferens Art Gallery, Kingston upon Hull in 1975.
His paintings are now in many galleries around the world, including the National Portrait Gallery, London, Sheffield and Derby Museum and Art Gallery.

He was one of the prime movers in setting up the Ben Uri Art Society, 1915.

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