Paintings are my honey, colors are my flowers, velocity is what’s required of a thief – he must paint as speedily as he draws a gun.
Walasse Ting
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.”
Walasse Ting 1929–2010
Born in Shanghai but spending much of his life in Europe and the US, Walasse Ting gained recognition as a prolific avant-garde artist, writer and poet. The self-proclaimed “Flower Thief” is best known for his exuberant paintings often featuring subjects such as cats, flowers and nudes in bright, joyous pigments with influences of Chinese calligraphy and Abstract Expressionism.
Though largely self-taught, Ting attended the Shanghai Art Academy before moving to Paris in 1947 to immerse himself in the city’s vibrant art scene. It was here that he became associated with the CoBrA movement and befriended artists such as Karel Appel and Pierre Alechinsky, who encouraged in their friend the expressive brushwork and vivid colors, which would become his trademark.
By the 1950s, Ting had relocated to New York where he continued to evolve his style, experimenting with Abstract Expressionism and Pop-Art. While his paintings brought Ting critical acclaim and popularity, he also published a number of written works during this time including the important 1 Cent Life portfolio. A collaboration with 28 of his contemporaries and friends, it featured material by artists such as Andy Warhol, Sam Francis, Roy Lichtenstein and Asger Jorn and proclaimed Ting's place at the center of contemporary art.
The widespread popularity of Ting’s work is as apparent today as it was during his lifetime. Critics and audiences embraced the charming romanticism of his images, which, unencumbered by political or cultural volatility, offered a respite from the intensity of much of the art being produced in the latter half of the 20th century. In 1970 Ting was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship and today, his works can be found in the collections of institutions such as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Hong Kong Museum of Art, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Auction Results Walasse Ting
An Architectural Vision: A California Collection
10:00 am pt
