Born in Paris but of Venezuelan descent, Marisol Escobar (1930-2016) was an artist who explored many mediums. She is best known for her wood assemblage sculptures depicting human form. Gaining notortiety in the late 1950s, Marisol was a part of the New York City Greenwich Village art scene, exhibiting alongside Robert Rauschenberg and good friends with Andy Warhol. However, she forged her own way with her graceful and unique style. Difficult to classify, she combined strains of Surrealism, Folk Art and Dada, often portraying herself, as in this gold self-portrait ring, or people of influence such as political leaders and movie stars.
A similar ring was exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, in the 1973 exhibition Jewelry as Sculpture as Jewelry. Additionally, the original wax prototype for the ring (in the collection of the Musem of Modern Art, New York) was exhibited in the circulating exhibition, Jewelry by Contemporary Painters and Sculptors, 1967-1968; Hessisches Landesmuseum in Darmstadt and Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam.
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.”
Marisol (Marisol Escobar) 1930–2016
Born in Paris in 1930 to Venezuelan parents, Marisol Escobar spent much of her childhood traveling Europe with her family and living alternately between Caracas and the United States. From an early age, Marisol aspired to be an artist. During high school in Los Angeles she enrolled in night classes at the Jepson School studying painting with Howard Warschaw and in 1949 she moved to Paris to attend the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. The traditional curriculum in Paris did not appeal to Marisol and after only one year, she returned to the United States.
Marisol moved to New York, the city was the setting for a number of relationships, events and introductions that would have a profound influence on her artistic production. In 1951, she visited a gallery featuring a show of Pre-Columbian art, an experience that led to her great appreciation for works by untrained artists and to her use of found objects in her work. Marisol also became friends with titans from the Abstract Expressionist movement; she took painting classes from Hans Hofmann and could be found at Cedar Tavern along with Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning as well as many writers of the beat generation. It was during the 1950s that Marisol shifted her interest from two-dimensional painting to sculpture, became known simply as Marisol, and had her first solo show at Leo Castelli Gallery (1958).
Marisol explains her shift towards sculpture, "started as a kind of rebellion. Everything was so serious - I started to do something funny so that I would become happier - and it worked." Marisol’s oeuvre is comprised of works that are at once solemn and humorous. Though her work aligns with a Pop sensibility, it defies strict categorization drawing from multiple schools of thought. From her earliest works, small figural forms in terracotta, bronze, and wood to her later large-scale assembled portraits, her art speaks to her diverse character and style. Marisol once said: "Whatever the artist makes is always a kind of self-portrait."
Today, works by Marisol can be found in permanent collections around the globe. Upon her death in 2016, Marisol’s estate was bequeathed to the Albright-Knox, the first museum to have acquired her work and with whom she maintained a relationship throughout her life.
Auction Results Marisol (Marisol Escobar)
