We reported last week on the forthcoming auction of half-a-dozen portraits by Alfred Wolmark of early 20th-century Jewish life in Britain.

But there is an interesting fact about the pious figures he depicted, according to the artist’s great-nephew, David Wolmark.

The men who posed for the paintings had never been to yeshivah. “They are actually tramps,” he revealed. “The Orthodox Jewish men couldn’t be painted, so that was the solution.”

Alfred Wolmark was not religious in the slightest, David said. “He only lived in Stamford Hill for about five minutes, then moved to Devon, where his most important works were painted.”