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The Last Days of Rabbi Ben Ezra

Born to a bourgeois, religious family who eventually settled in London’s East End, an area which housed many Jewish migrants, Wolmark changed his name to the more English-sounding ‘Alfred’ around 1894, in the face of antisemitism, whilst studying at the Royal Academy Schools. Encouraged to pursue an artistic career by his parents, unlike many first generation émigré Jewish artists, he first excelled at Rembrandt-esque history paintings with predominantly Jewish subjects. This painting is based on Robert Browning’s poem Rabbi ben Ezra (1864), which contradicted conventional ideas about aging by interpreting the philosophy of the 12th century Hebrew sage, Abraham Ibn Ezra, who greeted old age wit...
1905
Oil on canvas
185.5 x 318.0cm
Images and text © Ben Uri collection, 2017

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