biografia di Robert Jay WOLFF (1905-1977)

Birth place: Chicago, IL

Death place: New Preston, CT

Addresses: Paris (1926-31); Chicago (1931-45); NYC (1945); New Preston, CT

Profession: Painter, writer, designer, sculptor, lecturer, teacher

Studied: Yale Univ., 1926; briefly at …cole Beaux Arts with Georges Mouveau

Exhibited: AIC, 1934, 1935 (sculpture solo), 1938, 1946; Am. Abstract Artists, 1937-50; K. Kuh Gal., Chicago, 1930s-40s (solos); Reinhardt Gal., NYC (solo), Nierendorf Gal, NYC (solo); Kleeman Gal., NYC (solo); galleries in Denver, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Topeka; Realities Nouvelles, Paris & other European cities, 1948-51; Guggenheim Mus., 1951 (solo); traveling exhib. to France, Italy, Germany & Switzerland, 1956; PAFA Ann., 1958; CGA, 1958; WMAA, 1958; plus nine solos, New York, 1939-58.

Member: Am. Abstract Artists, 1937

Work: AIC; Brooklyn Mus.; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT; Tate Gallery, London; Guggenheim Mus; RISD; Brooklyn Mus; Brooklyn Col, CUNY.

Comments: A geometric abstract painter. After teaching at the Chicago Bauhaus he implemented the first Bauhaus-derived arts program in a liberal arts college in America ó at Brooklyn College. Author: "Toward a Direct Vision" in Am. Abstract Artists cat., 1938; Elements of Design: Educational Portfolio, MoMA, 1946; Education of Vision, Brazilier, 1965 (contrib.); Seeing Red, Feeling Blue & Hello Yello, Scribners, 1968; On Art & Learning, Grossman, 1971. Teaching: Dean, School of Design, Chicago, 1938-42; chmn., professor art, Brooklyn College, CUNY, 1946-71; visiting professor design, MIT, 1961.

Sources: WW73; Sidney Janis Abstract Art in America (Reynal & Hitchcock ,1944); L Moholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion (Theobold-Chicago, 1948); M. Seuphor, Dictionary of Abstract Art (Tudor, 1957). More recently, see American Abstract Art, 202; Falk, Exh. Record Series.