Joe Wolpe

Art Brokerage: Joe Wolpe South African Artist: b. 1922. Joe Wolpe, born in Cape Town 1922, is primarily known for the invaluable role he played in the promotion of art in South Africa as Cape Town's 'oldest' art dealer. During the course of his long and illustrious career as a dealer/consultant, Wolpe was responsible for putting international art on the South African map, handling major works by artists such as Chagall, Moore, Picasso, Braque, Vlaminck, Kitaj, Morandi, Armitage, Bacon, Modigliani, Chadwick, Hepworth, Warhol, Kandinsky, and Klee, breaking auction records abroad for works by Ben Nicholson and George Segal, and hosting exhibitions by South Africans of repute, namely Irma Stern, Cecil Higgs, Cecil Skotnes, Fred Page, and Charles Gassner. His contribution to art was recognized at home, as well as abroad where he was a well-respected name in the international art trade, selected by Sotheby's in London to appear in a TV film entitled, "A Day in the Life of Sotheby's", made for the BBC in 1982. In 1984 the SA Association of Arts, Western Cape, honoured him with the Cape Arts Medal in recognition of his integrity, honesty, sincerity and commitment during his lifelong service to the visual arts, the first dealer ever to receive this award here. Wolpe's ongoing passion for art resulted in the creation of his own artworks, intermittently at first after he completed his schooling, and then sporadically, over his many decades as a gallerist. Although occasionally participating in group exhibitions in Cape Town, he has never held a solo show. This small retrospective represents a milestone in his career and in the history of AVA and art in this city. Preferring to work on a modest scale, using a multitude of media including found objects (before they were fashionable), Wolpe has tended to focus on abstraction in his paintings. Subject matter per se was never the issue for him -rather he concentrated on the subtle relationships between colour, form, shape and texture, often reworking his surfaces until he was satisfied that they complied with his own exceedingly demanding standards of excellence. Choosing muted, understated colours with delicate tonal variations and economy of line, Wolpe celebrates minimalism. His unfaltering eye and unerring hand ensure that his composition, balance and structure are perfectly poised in his intimate and harmonious creations.