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Self-taught artist John Allin made his mark within what is today considered the Folk/Outsider Art movement in Britain, adopting a naive style and drawing on memories of his East End childhood to capture a fast-disappearing era. This scene depicts the former Spitalfields Great Synagogue, situated on the corner of Brick Lane and Fournier Street: originally a church for Huguenot refugees, then a Wesleyan Chapel, then the Machzikei Hadath community synagogue, it observed strict orthodox standards of religious worship: Allin’s male congregants, dressed in shtreimels and wearing side curls, typify the largely Eastern European Jewish community it served until 1952. Reflecting the fluidity of migration to the East End and the adaptation of local buildings, it is now a mosque for the Bangladeshi Muslim community.