Lot 1128: 3 Meyer Wolfe Works on Paper Incl. Lithographs & Drawing, Acrobats

Three (3) Meyer R. Wolfe (Tennessee/New York, 1897-1985) signed works on paper with depictions of male acrobats. 1st item: Charcoal drawing on paper that depicts three full-length acrobats who strike dynamic poses as they perform or practice, 1953. Signed and dated lower left. Housed under glass in a painted wooden frame with tan mat. Sight: 21 3/4 in. H x 18 1/2 in. W. Framed: 31 1/8 in. H x 27 3/4 in. W. 2nd-3rd items: Two (2) lithographs, one with a three-quarters length primary figure in repose and one with three full-length primary figures engaged in an acrobatic display. Both pencil signed lower right. Lithograph with three-quarters length figure titled “Acrobats #5,” lower left. Lithograph with central figural group dated 1950, lower right. Both housed under glass in ebonized wood frames with cream mats. “Acrobats #5” sight: 14 1/8 in. H x 10 1/8 in. W. “Acrobats #5” framed: 21 1/4 in. H x 16 3/4 in. W. Untitled lithograph sight: 15 5/8 in. H x 11 5/8 in. W. Untitled lithograph framed: 24 3/4 in. H x 20 3/4 in. W. Biography: Meyer (“Mike”) Wolfe was born into a Jewish Lithuanian immigrant family, the second of ten children. He was raised in a low-income, multiracial neighborhood of Nashville just north of the Tennessee State Capitol, where he observed the social and cultural lives of his African American friends. As a teen with an interest in drawing, he became a protege of Pulitzer Prize winning Nashville cartoonist Carey Orr. In 1917 he studied briefly at the Art Institute of Chicago and worked as an illustrator. In 1918 he moved to New York and met Ashcan School painter John Sloan, who became one of his most influential teachers. Wolfe traveled to Paris in 1926 to train at the Academie Julian in Paris. While overseas, he met (and later married) the fashion photographer Louise Dahl-Wolfe. Meyer exhibited at the San Francisco Art Association, the New York 1939 World’s Fair, and in Nashville, where he later returned to live. However, much of his later life was spent supporting and managing his wife’s career, and as a result, many of Wolfe’s paintings and prints were never publicly shown or sold. His narrative lithographs of African American life in Nashville during the 1930s are considered among his most important works and very rarely come on the market. His work is also held by the National Museum of American Art-Smithsonian Institution, the Tennessee State Museum, and the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis. Sources: “Meyer Wolfe: The Star of All Things” (digital exhibit catalog for the 2021 exhibit at the Nashville Parthenon); Dr. Lawrence Wolfe; Robert Ikard, Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Summer, 2007.

PROVENANCE:

The estate of Dr. Lawrence Wolfe, Nashville, Tennessee.

CONDITION:

All items in overall very good condition. Item 1 with pinholes to corners plus accretions or grime to mat. Items 2 and 3 both with abrasions and minor losses to frames, especially to corners. “Acrobats #5” with mildew to lower edge of mat. Not examined out of frames.