Rago Auctions

Artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude first conceived the Valley Curtain project for Rifle, Colorado, between Grand Junction and Glenwood Springs, in 1970 and it was ultimately executed in August 1972. This monumental installation involved a 250,000-square-foot orange curtain made of nylon polyamide fabric that stretched across the 1,250-foot-wide Rifle Gap, reaching 300 feet in height at its tallest point.

Despite facing challenges, including an initial failed attempt in October 1971 when high winds damaged the fabric, the curtain was successfully installed on August 10, 1972. It was secured in place using 864-ton concrete foundations on either side of the gap and four sixty-one-ton cables running across the valley. Additionally, the curtain was transported inside a protective rubber cocoon, further safeguarded by a second cocoon within the fabric. A team of thirty-five construction workers and sixty-four helpers, including art students and other staff, played a crucial role in securing the massive curtain. However, just twenty-eight hours after its completion, strong winds exceeding sixty miles per hour forced the removal of the installation.

The Valley Curtain project, designed by Dimiter Zagoroff, John Thomson, and Dr. Ernest C. Harris, was built by A & H Builders, Inc. and took a total of twenty-eight months to complete. It was financed by the Valley Curtain Corporation, with Christo and Jeanne-Claude not accepting any form of sponsorship for the project, as was their standard practice as proudly self-financed artists.

As consummate patrons of the arts, Acey and Bill Wolgin did not just live with the art that they collected—they lived alongside the artists who made it. Through their generous support of both individual artists as well as institutions they cherished, the Wolgins became widely celebrated collectors known for their friendships with artists—including Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, Arman, and Robert Rauschenberg—that were sustained, not least, by legendary parties thrown at their Philadelphia apartment.

Bill Wolgin, who practiced as a urologist, met Acey through her brother with whom he attended medical school. The pair married and made strong roots in Philadelphia—indeed, the Wolgins may be credited for having a significant role in elevating the City of Brotherly Love to the cultural destination that it is today. In the 1960s, Acey was a founding member of the Arts Council at the Young Women’s Hebrew Association, which helped spark the city’s contemporary art scene. In 1974, Acey became one of the first women elected to the board of the Philadelphia Art Museum, where she served as a trustee and trustee emeritus for the rest of her life. When Robert Indiana’s LOVE stamp was released at that museum, Acey’s birthday party doubled as the event after-party. Among the attendees was the artist Arman, who absconded with a piece of the LOVE stamp-themed cake in order to seal it in resin.

The Wolgins would later relocate to Boca Raton, where they became actively involved in the Boca Raton Museum of Art and eventually funded the Wolgin Education Center. After returning to Philadelphia, Bill Wolgin would become involved in the Woodmere Art Museum as a trustee, helping to guide the institution’s expansion. Works from the Wolgin Collection are now held in all three of the institutions where they became involved, including Yves Klein’s Portrait Relief I: Arman at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Fletcher Benton’s Donut with Balls and Half Moon at the Boca Raton Museum of Art, and a group of large-scale sculptures by Sam Maitin at the Woodmere Art Museum.

Surrounded by his parents’ collection from a young age, Richard Wolgin recalls meeting many of the artists whose works he knew intimately—especially memorable was the flaming red hair of Jeanne-Claude when she and Christo dropped in one weekend. (When they weren’t celebrating together, the Wolgins kept correspondences with many of their artist-friends, who sent postcards and, sometimes, drawings.) As kids, Richard and his sister would, naturally, delight in playing with one of Harry Bertoia’s sound sculptures. When Richard was twelve years old, Acey gave him his first work: Roy Lichtenstein’s CRAK!, which he affixed to his bedroom wall with thumb tacks—inadvertently bringing the work back into the realm of mass media and pop cultural detritus that so inspired Lichtenstein.

The works featured in The Acey and Bill Wolgin Collection represent a life lived through, and for, art—“It’s not just buying something to hang on the wall,” says Richard, “it’s a piece of their lives, that are now part of our lives.”