Art doesn't transform. It just plain forms.
Roy Lichtenstein
My work isn't about form. It's about seeing. I'm excited about seeing things, and I'm interested in the way I think other people see things.
Roy Lichtenstein
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.”
Roy Lichtenstein 1923–1997
Roy Lichtenstein is one of the originators of the Pop Art movement, famed for paintings that take kitsch and transform it into culture. Lichtenstein was born in New York City in 1923. Growing up, he took art classes at the Art Student League where he created realist paintings. Lichtenstein continued his study of art at Ohio State University but, with the advent of World War II, he enlisted in the army in 1943. Lichtenstein returned to Ohio State after the war to finish his master’s degree in studio art. While Lichtenstein was teaching art at Rutgers University, he became close with fellow artist Allan Kaprow, who introduced him to Claes Oldenburg. It was during the 1960s that Lichtenstein began experimenting with what would become his signature style of taking images from comic books and newspapers and reproducing them on a large scale, calling attention to the flatness of the imagery with his Ben-Day technique of painting dots. In 1962, Lichtenstein got his first break with a one-man show at the Leo Castelli Gallery, which sold out before it opened.
Later in his career, Lichtenstein began to cleverly re-appropriate the work of fellow modern masters like Warhol, Picasso, and Mondrian, either by overtly miming the imagery or by placing these works of art into his Interiors series of paintings. The public alternatively lauded and reviled Lichtenstein for his quiet commitment to painting popular culture, and was often met with mixed feeling; in 1964 Life magazine published an article about him entitled “Is He the Worst Artist in America?” Regardless, Lichtenstein’s place in the canon of modern art is firmly established, and his works are found in major museums across the world. Lichtenstein passed away in 1997.
Auction Results Roy Lichtenstein
