The Cockpit

From the series Fourteen Illustrations to the works Israel Zangwill, vol. 13. This illustration is one of fourteen designed by Alfred Wolmark in 1925, for inclusion
as reproductions in a deluxe edition of the Collected Works of Israel Zangwill. Israel was a writer known as the Jewish Dickens after the publication of his most famous
novel, 'Children of the Ghetto'; which described Jewish life in the East End of London. This one for ‘The Cockpit’ is drawn in watercolour, pen and ink on paper. It shows well Alfred’s careful use of colour in a modernist style, using artistic techniques developed over many years. ‘The Cockpit’ is a drama, originally published in 1921, where the noted author expresses his revulsion at the causes and consequences of the First World War.

After a period in America (1919-20), Alfred returned to London and continued his ‘colourist’ work. In 1925, he was asked to design the book illustrations for Israel Zangwill’s Collected Works, including this drawing for ‘The Cockpit’. Alfred chose to show a weeping, Biblical figure surveying a battlefield. A dead soldier lies beneath barbed wire, his helmet beside him and with an artillery gun behind. Alfred uses colour carefully, with dark and strong colours for the mud and the dead man, with lighter colours rising through the drawing, with strong colours again for the head and surrounding motif for the Biblical figure. Through a careful use of form, composition and colour, Alfred produced a drawing which communicated the author’s concern about war, which also reflected his own emotions and used his modernist, colourist skills to advantage. These had been developed through his design work during the First World War, when he had encountered the discipline of including visually complex information in posters and on ceramics, formats which offered less generous scope for visual story telling than paintings and drawings.