Lot 201: Meyer Wolfe Oil Still Life, Flowers on a Table

Meyer Wolfe (American/Tennessee, 1897-1985) oil on canvas still life painting depicting a vase with flowers, pottery and books on a table in an interior setting. Signed lower right and dated 1930. Molded wood frame with painted mat. Leo Robinson NY Frames stamp en verso of frame. Sight: 24 1/2 in. H x 20 1/2 in. W. Frame: 30 1/2 in H. x 26 1/2 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, racially diverse 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 and remained within his family. His work was the subject of a retrospective at the Parthenon in Nashville in 2021. Ofthers are in the permanent collections of 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 catalog for the 2021 exhibition at the Nashville Parthenon); Dr. Lawrence Wolfe; Robert Ikard, Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Summer, 2007.

PROVENANCE:

The estate of Dr. Lawrence Wolfe, by descent from his uncle, the artist Meyer Wolfe.

CONDITION:

Overall good condition; surface dry. Minor wear to frame.