Sotheby’s The Spirit Of America – The Wolf Family Collection
April 19, 20 & 21
1334 York Avenue, New York, NY 10021
www.sothebys.com/WOLF
wolfcollection@sothebys.com
+1 213-606-7000

NEW YORK CITY — Erving and Joyce (Joy) Wolf were pioneers in all aspects of life, and their remarkable journeys, beginning with their upbringings at a Wyoming Air Force Base and in Brooklyn, in many ways, epitomize the romantic ideals of the American Dream, from their whirlwind courtship of just over two weeks to building the Wolf Land Company and Inexco Oil Company from the ground up amidst the backdrop of the American West, and much more.

Estimated to realize in excess of $50 million, the Wolf family collection will be offered at Sotheby’s New York beginning this April across a series of single-owner sales, all together constituting what the firm characterizes as one of the largest and most significant private collections of American art to ever come to auction.

The sale series will launch with an evening sale on April 19, The Spirit of America, showcasing a selection of the collection’s top masterworks in fine art, sculpture, furniture, Chinese export porcelain, silver and Twentieth Century design. The Spirit of America will be the first sale of its kind to present masterpieces from these diverse collecting fields in one auction, followed by a series of cross-category live and online sales curated to reflect the narratives and dialogues across the collection.

One of the guiding principles that defined their seven decades of marriage was the Wolfs’ shared passion and love of American art and objects. A mirror to their insatiable curiosity, wide-ranging interests and decades-long friendships within the art community, the vast collection that filled the Wolf’s Fifth Avenue residence is unique in its superlative quality and unparalleled depth. Replete with more than 1,000 individual works that adorned its carefully curated spaces, the rooms of the home each spotlight a different a style and time period while creating a unique harmony that ties them all together and evokes the grandeur and authenticity of museum period rooms. The home exudes an effortless style that is a testament to Erving and Joy’s natural ability to live with and care for their collection, from paintings adorned with the most elegantly carved frames to works on paper preserved to their highest integrity to exquisite ceramics placed around the residence.

The Wolf family collection comprises a breadth of works of fine and decorative arts, with examples of paintings and watercolors, sculpture, early American furniture, silver, Chinese export porcelain, design and jewelry. In its totality the collection embodies the spirit of American artistry, design and craftsmanship, spanning the Eighteenth through Twentieth Centuries.

Of the major gifts made to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, two are particularly significant — a large silver presentation vase made in Philadelphia by Fletcher and Gardiner that was given in 1825 to Governor DeWitt Clinton to commemorate the opening of the Erie Canal, and Martin Johnson Heade’s 1859 painting “The Coming Storm,” a masterpiece of American Luminism.

The American paintings from the collection represent the best from a range of periods, subjects and styles spanning the history of American art, from Eighteenth Century portraits to Nineteenth Century landscapes to Twentieth Century Modernism. The centerpiece is William Merritt Chase’s masterpiece of American painting, with portrait highlights by John Singleton Copley and Gilbert Stuart — founding members of the American art scene in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries — as well as depictions of the American landscape, including Hudson River School paintings by Sanford Robinson Gifford and Worthington Whittredge.

European influences representing the cultural interchange that took place in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries are embodied in works by Winslow Homer and John La Farge, with work by American Modernists Maurice B. Prendergast and Charles Demuth highlighting the technical, cultural and artistic achievements of the Twentieth Century.

Additionally, a selection of bronzes in the collection surveys offerings of American sculpture by renowned artists of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. The American bronzes span various geographic regions and historical periods in a manner that presents a comprehensive study of American history through sculpture. The range of the collection includes multiple works by Paul Manship and Augustus Saint-Gaudens, offering a unique perspective into their practices.

Rife with masterpieces of Twentieth Century design, showing the artistic progression and lineage of craftsmanship from the Colonial era to the Twentieth Century, the collection features some of the most important historical works by the quintessential artists and architects who defined the Twentieth Century, notably Louis Comfort Tiffany, Frank Lloyd Wright and Greene & Greene. As seen across genres, the Wolf design collection showcases supreme artistry, masterful craftsmanship and impeccable provenance.

Sotheby’s is at 1334 York Avenue. For information, 212-606-7000 or www.sothebys.com.

Exhibition free & open to the public 14-21
The Spirit Of America | April 19
Exceptional Jewels, Forging America, Modern America, Glorious America | April 20
Cross-Currents In America | April 21