Alfred joseph woolmer biography
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Alfred Patriarch Woolmer
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Alfred Patriarch Woolmer
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British
Innate 1805 - Died 1892
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Alfred Woolmer
British painter (1805–1892)
Alfred Joseph Woolmer (1805–1892) was an English painter whose subject matter covered the literary and historical genre. He was exceptionally prolific and, by age sixty, the number of works he had exhibited had reached 355 at the Society of British Artists, 45 at the British Institution, and 12 at the Royal Academy.[1]
Woolmer started contributing to exhibitions in 1828. In 1848 he was elected to the Society of British Artists and in the following decade would exhibit between ten and sixteen pictures each year with the society.[1]
His paintings, often mildly erotic, portray the concept of "ut pictura poesis".[1] Marina Warner described his Lady Godiva, displayed at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum in Coventry, as "sumptuous".[2]
"Lalla Rookh" (1861), is based on the hugely popular 19th-century poem by Irish poet Thomas Moore, Lalla Rookh (1817). The painting depicts Hinda, daughter of the Emir of Arabia, in a tower overlooking the Persian Gulf, based on the story called "The Fire-Worshippers" in the poem. The painting is now housed in the Leicester Museum & Art Gallery.[3]
References
[edit]Media related to Alfred Joseph Woolmer at Wikimedia Commons
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Tradition has recorded that Woolmer studied art in Italy, and, though it is uncertain how formal a training this was, it is known that he undertook a number of sketching tours on the Continent during his career. While living at 50 Earl Street, Paddington, in 1827, he began to show work in London, contributing to the exhibitions of the Royal Academy of Arts, the British Institution and especially the Society of British Artists. He was elected to the membership of the latter in 1841, and for the following decade would contribute between 10 and 16 paintings a year to its annual exhibitions.
Having lived at several different addresses early in his career, Woolmer settled at Fortis Green, in Finchley, in 1849.
Four years later, he married Mary Anne Tuffield, daughter of Edward Tuffield, a painter and glazier. From that time, he halved the number of his submissions to the Society of British Artists. He and his wife would have at least three sons and
a daughter called Marion, who also became an artist. The family lived at two different addresses in Upper Holloway du