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Emerson Woelffer

1914-2003

SELECTED CHRONOLOGY:

1914	Born in Chicago, Illinois
1935-37	Attends Art Institute of Chicago School of Art
1938	Joins WPA Arts Program
1939-40	Joins US Army Air Force as a Topographical Draftsman
1924-49	Faculty member at the Institute of Design, Chicago with Moholy-Nagy
1948	Receives Pauline Palmer First Prize for Painting, Art Institute of Chicago, IL
1949	Teaches at Black Mountain College, N.C.
	Paints and travels to Yucatan, Mexico
1950	Receives Honorary Bachelor of Arts degree, Institute of Design, Chicago  IL
1950-56	Instructor at the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center
1957-59	Lives in Forio d’Ischia Naples, Italy, travels throughout Europe
1959-69	Instructs at the Chouinard Art Institute, Los Angeles CA
1961	Moves to Los Angeles
	Fellowship, Tamarind Lithography Workshop, Los Angeles CA
1965	Receives U.S. State Department Grant
	Lectures and exhibits throughout travels in Turkey
1967	Receives Guggenheim Fellowship, travelled in Europe
1969-73	Instructs at the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia
1970	Artist-in-Residence, Honolulu Academy of the Arts, Valencia
1971	Creates lithographs with Tamstone Group, Los Angeles
1974-79	Teaches at Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles, CA
1974	National Endowment for the Arts grant
1979-89	Chairman of the Painting Dept. at the Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles, CA
1983	Tamarind Lithography Workshop Grant, Albuquerque, NM
1984	Pollock-Krasner Grant
1988	Francis Greenberger Award (in conjunction with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY)
1989-92	Instructor, Graduate studies, Otis Art Institute/ Parsons School of Design
1991	Honorary Doctorate Degrees: Otis Art Institute/ Parsons School of Design
2003	Dies on February 2 in Los Angeles, CA

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SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS:

1946	Woelffer: Drawings, Paintings, Institute of Design, Chicago, IL
1949	Black Mountain College, Black Mountain NC
	The Artist’s Gallery, New York NY
1950	Contemporary American Paintings and Sculpture 1950, Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign IL
1951	Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago IL
1953	Margaret Brown Gallery, Boston MA
1956	Paul Kantor Gallery, Beverly Hills CA
1958	Poindexter Gallery, New York NY
1959	Poindexter Gallery, New York NY
1960	Paul Kantor Gallery, Beverly Hills CA
1961	La Jolla Art Center, La Jolla CA
	Poindexter Gallery, New York NY
	Primus-Stuart Gallery, Los Angeles CA
1962	Emerson Woelffer: Work from 1946-1962, Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena CA
1963	Emerson Woelffer, Gres Gallery, Chicago IL
1964	Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara CA
1965	Gallery 16, Graz, Austria
	David Stuart Gallery, Los Angeles CA
1967	Quay Gallery, San Francisco CA
1969	David Stuart Gallery, Los Angeles CA
1970	Emerson Woelffer: 1956-69, Honolulu Academy of Arts, Honolulu HI
1972	Jodi Scully Gallery, Los Angeles CA
1973	Jodi Scully Gallery, Los Angeles CA
1974	Emerson Woelffer, The Phillips Collection, Washington DC
	Emerson Woelffer: A Survey Exhibition, The Years 1947-1974, The Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport CA
1976	Poindexter Gallery, New York NY
1978	Emerson Woelffer: Paintings and Collages, Gruenebaum Gallery, New York NY
	Abe Adler Gallery, Los Angeles CA
1982	Emerson Woelffer and Felix Ruvolo: Paintings of the Fifties, Gruenebaum Gallery, New York NY
	Emerson Woelffer: Profile of the Artist, 1947-1981, The Art Gallery, Visual Arts Center, California State University Fullerton, Fullerton CA
	Montgomery Art Gallery, Pomona College, Claremont CA
	Hoshour Gallery, Albuquerque, NM
1983	Emerson Woelffer Collage, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose CA
1984	Emerson Woelffer: New Paintings, Gruenebaum Gallery, New York NY
1986	Emerson Woelffer: Recent Work, Wenger Gallery, Los Angeles CA
1990	Emerson Woelffer: Collages 1978-1982, Manny Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles CA
1992	Emerson Woelffer: A Modernist Odyssey, (A fifty year retrospective of works on paper), Otis Parsons Art Institute, Los Angeles CA
	Emerson Woelffer: Selected Paintings from Four Decades, Manny Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles CA; James Corcoran Gallery, Los Angeles CA
1993	Emerson Woelffer, Tobey C. Moss Gallery, Los Angeles CA
1998	Emerson Woelffer: In The Studio, Manny Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles CA
2000	Emerson Woelffer: Selected Works, Manny Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles CA
2003	Emerson Woelffer: A Solo Flight, The Gallery at REDCAT, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles CA
	Emerson Woelffer: A Memorial: Works on Paper, Tobey C. Moss Gallery, Los Angeles CA
2004	Emerson Woelffer: Life in the Abstract, Colorado Springs Fine Art Center, Colorado Springs CO
2008	Emerson Woelffer: At the Center + At The Edge, Black Mountain College Museum, Asheville NC

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SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

1943	The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York NY
1945	The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York NY
1948	San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco CA
	Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago IL
1949	The Whitney Annual, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York NY
1950	Six American Painters, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston MA
1951	Contemporary Painting in the United States: Annual Exhibition 1951, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles CA
1952	Carnegie International, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh PA
	Sixty-Second Annual Exhibition, University of Nebraska Art Gallery
1957	Pacemakers, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston TX
1959	One Hundred Works on Paper, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston MA
	Internationale Ausstellung Graphik der Gegenwart, Gallerie Kunst der Gegenwart, Salzburg Austria
	W.R.Valentiner Memorial Exhibition: Masterpieces of Art, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh NC
1961	One Hundred Paintings from the G. David Thompson Collection, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York NY
1962	Fifty California Artists, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco CA
	The Artist’s Environment: West Coast, Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Fort Worth TX
1963	Arts of Southern California XIII - Painting, Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach CA
1964	Post Painterly Abstraction, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles CA; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis MN; Art Gallery of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
1966	California ‘66: Painters and Sculptors, Crocker Art Gallery, Sacramento CA
1967	American Painting Since 1900 from the Permanent Collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC
	A Selection of Paintings and Sculptures from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Rowan, University of California at Irvine, Irvine CA; San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco CA
1968	The One Hundred and Sixty-Third Annual Exhibition: American Painting and Sculpture, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia PA
1969	Tamarind: Homage to Lithography, The Museum of Modern Art, New York NY
	Microcosm ‘69, Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach CA
1970	Second Annual Print Exhibition, Honolulu Academy of Art, Honolulu HI
1974	Nine Senior Southern California Painters, Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
	Painting: Color, Form and Surface, Lang Art Gallery, Scripps College, Claremont CA
1976	Five On Paper, Janus Gallery, Los Angeles CA
1979	100 Artists 100 Years: Centennial Exhibition of the Art Institute of Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago IL
1980	Emerson Woelffer and Karla Klarin, Kirk de Gooyer Gallery, Los Angeles CA
1981	Southern California Artists: 1940-1980, Laguna Beach Museum of Art, Laguna Beach CA
	Los Angeles Prints: 1883-1980, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles CA
1982	Uniquely American, The Artrain (a traveling art museum housed in vintage rail cars)
	The Michael and Dorothy Blankfort Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles CA
1983	Tenth Anniversary Exhibition, Gruenebaum Gallery, New York NY
	California Contemporary Recent Work of Twenty-Three Artists, Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art, Monterey CA
1986	Elders of the Tribe, Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, New York NY
1989	California Clay Redux Europa, Wenger Gallery, Los Angeles CA
1990	Functionists High, American Gallery, Los Angeles CA
1991	Paradox, Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe NM
1992	American Abstract Drawings: 1930-1987, Selections from the Arkansas Arts Center Foundation Collection, The Art Gallery of Claremont Colleges, Claremont CA
1993	Collage, Brian Gross Fine Art, San Francisco CA
	The Usual Suspects, Manny Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles CA
1994	Works on Paper, Manny Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles CA
1995	Assemblage and Collage, Tobey C. Moss Gallery, Los Angeles CA
	Pasted Papers: Collage and the 20th Century, Louis Stern Gallery, Los Angeles CA
	Trilogy: Three Approaches to Collage, West Gallery, Claremont Graduate School, Claremont CA
	Air-Conditioned Abstraction, Manny Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles CA
1996	Art in Chicago: 1945-1995, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago IL
	On the Edge of America: California Modern Art, Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, Los Angeles CA
	Manny Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles CA
	The Third Dimension, Tobey C. Moss Gallery, Los Angeles CA
1997	Collage and Assemblage, Manny Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles CA
	Illusive Paradise, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles CA
	California Modernism and Abstraction, Tobey C. Moss Gallery, Los Angeles CA
1998	The Poindexter Collection of Modern American Masters, Denver Art Museum, Denver CO
1999	Vanguard Art in Colorado, 1940-1970, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder CO
	Thomas McCormick Gallery, Chicago IL
	The Collection of Robert Rowan, Mills College Art Museum, Oakland CA
2001-03	Poets and Other Figures, Manny Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles CA
	The Stamp of Impulse: Abstract Expressionist Prints, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester MA
2001	Abstract Expressionism: Expanding the Canon, Gary Snyder Fine Arts, New York NY
2002	Creative Transitions, Tobey C. Moss Gallery, Los Angeles CA
2002-03	Holiday Highlights - Works on Paper, Tobey C. Moss Gallery, Los Angeles CA
2003	From Brice and Feitelson to Goya and Ribera: Four Centuries of the Figure, Tobey C. Moss Gallery, Los Angeles CA
2005	California Gold, Tobey C. Moss Gallery, Los Angeles CA
2006	Drawings: The Hand of the Artist, Tobey C. Moss Gallery, Los Angeles CA
	Driven to Abstraction: Southern California and the Non-Objective World, 1950-1980, Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA
2008	The Big 3-0! Thirty Years of California Modernism, Tobey C. Moss Gallery, Los Angeles CA

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PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock AR
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago IL
Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Fort Worth TX
Baltimore Art Museum, Baltimore MD
Bauhaus Archives, Berlin, Germany
Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France
Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs CO
Fresno Art Museum, Fresno CA
Honolulu Academy of Arts, Honolulu HI
Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
Kansas City Museum, Kansas City MO
Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign IL
La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla CA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles CA
The Museum of Modern Art, New York NY
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles CA
Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe NM
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee WI
New Orleans Museum, New Orleans LA
Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach CA
Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University Logan, UT
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh NC
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco CA
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle WA
Smithsonian Archives of American Art, Washington DC
The Frederick S. Wright Art Gallery, University of California, Los Angeles CA
University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley CA
University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City IA
Washington Gallery of Modern Art, Washington DC
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York NY
Wooster Art Museum, Wooster MA

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