Object Record
Images
Metadata
Object Name |
Painting |
Title |
Study #1 Chichicastenago (in pencil) |
Catalog Number |
2017.2.1 |
Creator |
Wolfson, Emily |
Maker |
Wolfson, Emily |
Date |
1940-1970 |
Material(s) |
Paper/Paint |
Dimensions |
H-17 W-13 inches |
Description |
This is a cubist-style watercolor study of a street scene in Chichicastenango, Guatemala. In it, two men, centrally located, stand in sunlight in front of a clothing booth, casting dark green shadows to their right onto white pavement. One of them is playing a stringed instrument as the other watches. To their left two figures stand in the shade; one wears a hooded red cloak, the other a hooded green cloak. Behind the two men, two men and a boy in white hats stand in the sun in front of a clothing stall. To the right, a woman with a blanket over her left shoulder stands watching from the shade as a man in white clothes and hat walks toward the musician and another in blue shirt and gray-green trousers looks into another stall. On the right, behind the clothing stall is a white building with a green tiled roof and an arched opening looking into a colonnaded veranda. To the right of this is a street with three seated figures, one resting against the building and the other two with their backs resting against white poles. To the right of this is a wall with a tree visible beyond it. |
Notes |
Emily Wolfson (September 2, 1915 - June 18, 2015) was a Kentucky artist, teacher, and activist. She was born in Henderson County to Joseph Thomas Wilson and Mary Compton King. She grew up in Wilson Station, a small community near Corydon where her father had a farm. When he lost his farm during the Great Depression, the family moved to Henderson, where she graduated from Barrett Manual Training High School in 1933. Wolfson's artistic abilities won her scholarship to the Newcomb School of Art in New Orleans. After she received a Bachelor of Design degree in 1937, she won a Wooley Fellowship in Painting that enabled her to spend a year in Paris, where she studied under the Cubist, Fernand Léger. She continued her art studies at Louisiana State University, where she obtained an MA in 1940. After working with the WPA in Louisville, she taught art and art history at Murray State Teachers College from 1941 until 1944. She left Murray to work at the Evansville Museum and Evansville College from 1944 to 1948. She taught art at the University of Indiana (Bloomington) from 1948 until 1958. She worked primarily as a painter until 1955, when she spent a sabbatical leave learning a double weaving technique in Helsinki, Finland. In 1957, Wolfson won Best in Show at the Midwest Designer and Craftsman Exhibition at the Chicago Art Institute. In 1958, she moved back to Murray and married Alfred M. Wolfson, Professor of Biology. She taught art and art history at Murray until she retired in 1969. In 1961, Emily Wolfson helped establish the Kentucky Guild of Artists and Craftsmen and was instrumental in organizing an Art Train that provided art instruction around the state in two railroad cars. During the 1960s, she assisted Naoma Powell in establishing the Quicksand Craft Center in Vest, where residents of an impoverished Eastern Kentucky mountain community were trained to produce high quality textiles. In 1976, she joined the Murray Art Guild, where she did much of her own work painting and which she actively supported. Governor Martha Layne Collins awarded her the Community Arts Award in 1987 as part of the Governor's Awards in the Arts. In 1997, she received the Rude Osolnik Award for her service to crafts in Kentucky. |
Collection |
Emily Wolfson Collection |
People |
Wolfson, Emily |
Subjects |
Art Artists Painting Paintings Teachers |
Search Terms |
Henderson (Ky.) Henderson County (Ky.) Murray (Ky.) Murray State University WPA |
Physical Holder |
Kentucky Historical Society - KHS |