Wright Auction

In a 1991 interview with Poppy Gandler Orchier, Robert Indiana was asked what he felt his most significant contribution to Contemporary American Printmaking was. He answered,

“I think that LOVE still has to stand as being my most conspicuous addition to the visual scene … there are not many artist’s prints that are so simple and so direct and so rather loaded with special significance.”

Before it was the unmistakable print, Indiana’s LOVE design was conceived in 1961 as a painting. The idea came to him from a childhood memory of seeing a “God is Love” sign as the only decoration on the wall of a Church. The work did not gain wide recognition until it was made into a Christmas card for MoMA in 1964. Indiana painted three example color combinations from which the museum chose the now recognizable red, blue, and green. The popularity of the Christmas card led Indiana to make a sculptural version of the work out of aluminum in 1970 to be exhibited at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The sculpture was later lent to the city of Philadelphia for the bicentennial celebration, where it is currently displayed. A few years later Indiana was commissioned by the US Postal Service to turn his design into a stamp which was issued in January of 1973. The LOVE stamp was a massive success and allowed for his work to circulate around the world with over 300 million printed. Following the fame of the stamp, the LOVE design was reworked many times over in different mediums, both by Indiana himself and the world at large. One notable rework is The Philadelphia LOVE. This screenprint was commissioned and published by the Friends of the Philadelphia Art Museum in the original color scheme to commemorate the release of the Love stamp in 1975.

The initial work, and its later re-imaginings, demonstrate Indiana’s engagement with the art world around him. His use of abstraction, plains of pure color, and serialization are key elements of the Pop Art movement in the 60s and 70s, to which he was essential. The minimalist layout and strong colors are what make the LOVE design immediately noticeable, while its simplicity and universal message make it widely accessible. Robert Indiana’s LOVE is the perfect blend of image and word and has become an important component of art history as a whole.

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.”