Biography and Curriculum Vitae

JACK WOLFE (1924-2007)

In 1959, after a series of wildly successful solo museum and gallery exhibitions, as well as group exhibitions at the Carnegie Institute and the Whitney Museum of American Art, where his work was shown alongside Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Richard Diebenkorn, Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler and many others, Jack Wolfe was asked by a young student what he was thinking about when he painted a canvas he had titled Chorus. To the student, he responded, “In the formal sense as you mean it, I was not thinking. Art is a communication. The artist looks at a picture, maybe on the wall or out the window … a country scene … and he looks beyond, as far as you can see and then further beyond into space. The artist is involved with space, beyond, beyond and beyond and then almost further than imagination.” From this place beyond imagination, Jack Wolfe enjoyed a career with every hallmark of success. Every hallmark that is, except for fame. To Wolfe, fame and success were opposing ideals, and very early on he made an unshakable commitment, not to marketability and commercial advancement, but to his unique vision as an artist and his integrity as a man. In this sense, the elegant, daring and consequential paintings we have from Wolfe today speak for themselves.

Born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1924, and raised in Brockton, Massachusetts, Wolfe studied first at RISD and then under the great Boston Expressionist, Karl Zerbe, with classmates Cy Twombly and Ellsworth Kelly at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in the late 1940s. Almost immediately, he attained representation at Boston’s distinguished Margaret Brown Gallery, alongside Alexander Calder and other cutting edge Moderns that defied the more conservative tastes of New England collectors at the time. By 1953 he had his first of dozens of subsequent museum exhibitions and became one of the earliest artists championed by the deCordova Museum in Lincoln, MA and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. The 1950s marked additional achievements, such as inclusion in the traveling exhibition, New Talent in the USA with the American Federation of the Arts, and paintings in two Whitney Museum Annuals, where the Whitney purchased one of Wolfe’s large triptychs for their permanent collection. In 1958, two of Wolfe’s works, his widely acclaimed Portrait of Abraham Lincoln and his five paneled Crucifixion were chosen by the US Information Agency for exhibition at the Salzburg Biennial and circulated throughout Europe, where they were met with widespread acclaim.

After winning both the first Margaret Brown Memorial Award and the Clarissa Bartlett Graduate Scholarship in 1958, Wolfe embarked on a year of travel, briefly stopping to paint in Mexico before settling in San Francisco. Upon his return in 1959, the deCordova Museum hosted Wolfe’s third solo exhibition, featuring work made during his time in California where it was reported that “more than 500 persons attended the opening. Competitive bidding added to the general mood of excitement. Eleven paintings were sold on the spot.” Of that exhibition, it was written in the Sudbury Mass Weekly Independent that, “Mr. Wolfe ranges in his work from fine portraiture to the most extreme abstractionism, both done with great success. He has been called the American inheritor of French cubism, a logical descendent of Picasso.” Edgar Driscoll added in the Boston Globe, “To those who have followed this 34 year old artist … the promise he had seems to be fulfilled. To our mind he has hit national stature chiefly because this always powerful and individualistic young painter has added a new dimension – depth.”

With his future as one of the great artists of his time laid out neatly before him, Wolfe moved to New York City in the early 1950s, which was then the postwar epicenter of the art world and in the midst of experiencing the first real revolution in American Art, now known as Abstract Expressionism. However, almost immediately upon his arrival he became disenfranchised with the overtly commercial nature of the art scene there, spurning fame and security in an unwillingness to bend his creative vision to the expectations of others. After four short months, he left New York, returned to Massachusetts where he bought property in Stoughton, cleared the land, and built both home and studio with his own two hands. Wolfe would go on to paint there, extensively exhibiting and garnering constant critical acclaim, until his death in 2007 at the age of 83.

Known primarily for his revolutionary, explosively colored and large-scale abstractions, Wolfe was also celebrated throughout his career for his portraiture (He and Elaine de Kooning enjoyed a successful two person portraiture exhibition in 1965) and was well known for his political and socially conscious works revolving around the civil rights movement, native americans, and the Vietnam War. His work continues to be represented in private and museum collections, including the Whitney Museum, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Phoenix Art Museum, the Rose Art Museum, the deCordova Museum, the Worcester Art Museum, The Harvard Art Museum and the Addison Gallery of American Art.

CV SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

1955 Carnegie International, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA 1956-57 New Talent in the USA, American Federation of Arts Traveling Exhibition, American Federation of Arts, New York, NY 1957 Whitney Annual, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY 1957 Margaret Brown Memorial Exhibition, deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA 1957 Young America, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY 1957 Selection, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA 1958 Whitney Annual, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY 1960 View, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA 1961 Robert Hamilton/Jack Wolfe: Recent Paintings, deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA 1962 Turn Toward Peace, Nova Gallery, Boston, MA 1962 American Painting, 1962 (Second Quadrennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting), The Virginia Museum, Richmond, VA 1962-63 Forty Artists Under Forty, from the Whitney Museum of American Art (circulated by the American Federation of Arts), New York, NY 1963 New England Art in Five Parts, deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA 1964 Religion and the Arts, St Mary’s Church, Rockport, MA 1965 New England Art Today, sponsored by New England Contemporary Artists, Inc, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 1965 Elaine de Kooning & Jack Wolfe Portrait Exhibition, Grover Cronin Gallery, Waltham, MA 1965 Examining Prejudice, Rockport Church, Rockport, MA 1965 Corporations Collect, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA 1966-67 Art for Embassies, U.S. State Department 1968 Artists for McCarthy, Weeden Gallery, Boston, MA 1968 Central Art Exhibit, Castle Square Project, sponsored by “Artists Against Racism and the War”, Boston, MA 1969 Portraits, Brockton Art Center Fuller Memorial, Brockton, MA 1969 Three Centuries of New England Art, Brockton Arts Center, Fuller Memorial Museum, Brockton, MA 1970 Collection of Contemporary Art given to Saint Lawrence University by Mr. and Mrs. Patrick B. McGinnis, Griffiths Art Center, Canton, NY

1971 Group Exhibition of works by leading contemporary artists alongside sculpture on loan from the Whitney, deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA 1973 Art for Israel, Harold Ernst Gallery, Boston, MA 1974 Drawings, deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA 1975 Painted in Boston, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA 1975 Candid Paintings, American Genre, 1950-75, deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA 1975 Contemporary Religious Imagery in American Art, Ringling Museum, Sarasota, FL 1976 Changes, University of Massachusetts Harbor Campus, Boston, MA 1977 Art in Transition, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA 1978 Modern and Contemporary Masters, Rose Art Museum, Waltham, MA 1980 Three Decades, deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA 1981 Art New England, Danco Gallery, Northampton, MA 1983 Boston Now, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA 1986 Expressionism in Boston, deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA 1987 Drawings from Boston, deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA 1989 Our Wider Selves, Artists Foundation, Boston, MA 1995 Boston’s Honored Artists, Danforth Museum, Framingham, MA 1998-99 Abstract Expressionism/Figurative Expressionism: Common Ground, deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA 2002 New England Currents, Danforth Museum, Framingham, MA 2009 The Odysseus Project, online exhibit sponsored by the Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequence, UMB, Boston, MA 2012 Refocus: The Art of the 1960s, Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville, FL

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

1952 Jack Wolfe-Paintings, Margaret Brown Gallery, Boston, MA 1953 Jack Wolfe-Paintings, deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA 1954 Jack Wolfe-Paintings, Margaret Brown Gallery, Boston, MA 1955 Jack Wolfe-Oils, deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA 1955 Recent Paintings by Jack Wolfe, Margaret Brown Gallery, Boston, MA 1957 Jack Wolfe-Paintings, deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA 1957 Jack Wolfe, Margaret Brown Gallery, Boston, MA 1958 Art and Man, Jack Wolfe’s Crucifixion painting is hung in the National Cathedral, Washington, DC 1959 Recent Paintings by Jack Wolfe, deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA 1960 Traveling Fellow, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA 1961 Jack Wolfe, Joan Peterson Gallery, Boston, MA 1965 Abstract Paintings, Obelisk Gallery, Washington, D.C. 1965 Painting Encounter on display, Boston Museum of Fine Art, Boston, MA 1966 Jack Wolfe/Recent Paintings, deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA 1967 Four Paintings, deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA

1970 New Paintings by Jack Wolfe, Cary Memorial Library, Lexington, MA 1973 Jack Wolfe-Selected Paintings, The Art Complex, Duxbury, MA 1976 Changes, University of Massachusetts Harbor Campus, Boston, MA 1978 Paintings and Drawings by Jack Wolfe, Ondine Gallery, Boston, MA 1979 Paintings by Jack Wolfe, Copley Society of Boston, Boston, MA 1980 Jack Wolfe-Paintings, Schlein Gallery, Boston, MA 1982 Jack Wolfe-Paintings and Portraits, The Art Complex, Duxbury, MA 1983 Jack Wolfe-Recent Work, deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA 1995 Jack Wolfe-Paintings from a Decade, Watson Gallery, Wheaton College, Norton, MA 1999 Jack Wolfe-Outside the Mainstream, Danforth Museum, Framingham, MA 2005 Jack Wolfe-Major Political Work from Six Decades of Paintings, Harbor Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Boston, MA 2006 Honoring the Native American: Portraits by Jack Wolfe, Reilly Gallery, Providence College, Providence, RI 2019 Roxbury Portrait and two Lincoln portraits exhibited, Anderson Gallery, Bridgewater, MA 2020 Black Voice- Freedom Summer exhibited, Anderson Gallery, Bridgewater, MA 2020 Native American Paintings (digital exhibition), Anderson Gallery, Bridgewater, MA 2021 Jack Wolfe: Beyond the Known, CK Contemporary, San Francisco, CA

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA Fuller Art Museum, Brockton, MA The Art Complex, Duxbury, MA Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA Danforth Museum, Framingham, MA Harvard University, Cambridge, MA University of Massachusetts, Boston, MA Boston University, Boston, MA Tufts University, Boston, MA Boston Public Library, Boston, MA From the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Student Records. Provided by Tufts University Archives.

REPRESENTATION

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Jack Wolfe: Beyond the Known November 2021

Exhibition organized by CK Contemporary Exhibition curated by Lauren Ellis

With special thanks to the estate of Jack Wolfe, Laurie Wolfe, Twyla Wolfe, Jen Wolfe, Ben Kou, Robert Cozzolino, Laurie Lingham, Travis Wilson, Kendall Murphy

Artwork Photography by Ben Kou and Michael Bennewitz Historic images provided by the estate of Jack Wolfe Catalog design by Lauren Ellis and Michael Bennewitz

Foreword © CK Contemporary and Lauren Ellis

Extreme Eclecticism © Robert Cozzolino

Jack Wolfe: Recent Work © deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Trustees of Reservations

Biography © CK Contemporary

© 2021 CK Contemporary All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from CK Contemporary.

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