Vibrant, colourful and exuberant are not words that readily spring to mind to describe British painting, yet they are the essence of Edward Wolfe's work. They are characteristic of many such overseas artists who settled here, became known as British painters, jolted the local's into thinking anew about colour and light and by so doing enlivened the London art scene.

When the young Wolfe arrived in 1916 from South Africa , where he was born and had grown up, he brought with him scholarships to study both acting and art. Soon, he chose the latter. It seems odd, in view of his later reputation as a colourist that, when he began his studies in 1917, Wolfe entered the Slade School where palettes were subdued and Henry Tonks insisted on fine drawing. Yet a cursory glance at Wolfe's paintings reveals a sound underlying draughtsmanship. As well as in his landscapes and still lifes, it is especially apparent in the illustrations for The Song of Songs and his sensitive drawings of children.

Wolfe came to a London being introduced to new ideas in art, an awareness that was to grow between the wars. Just before World War I Roger Fry had held influential exhibitions of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists, the painters Harold Gilman and Spencer Gore had exhibited work with the Camden Town Group showing a new approach to light and colour and others such as Wyndham Lewis and William Roberts were bringing their own dynamic to the visual arts.

David Buckman; Author, 'Dictionary of Artists in Britain since 1945'

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