From Dec 11th Philadelphia Inquirer
By Amy S. Rosenberg
Jack L. Wolgin, the man who commissioned the iconic Clothespin sculpture across from Philadelphia's famous City Hall, once again is poised to make his mark on that city's arts landscape, this time by endowing an unprecedented fine-arts prize through Temple University's Tyler School of Art.
Officials at Tyler said the $3.7 million gift from Wolgin, 92, will create the world's largest prize solely for fine artists, an annual $150,000 juried award to be known as the Wolgin International Prize in the Fine Arts.
It will be awarded exclusively to an individual fine artist who creates "work that transcends traditional boundaries and exemplifies the highest level of excellence in painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, ceramics, metals, glass or fibers."
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I've known Jack Wolgin all my life. As I great philanthropist I hoped he would build the Louis Kahn designs for Mikvah Israel, perhaps the oldest Sephardic synagogue in America. This project would have honored Kahn in his native city of Philadelphia where he is woefully under-represented, and Wolgin and Jews. But alas, as an artist myself, I'm happy to hear about Wolgin's enormous and hopefully prestigious art prize. I figure it will take six months for the art noise to die down and the fame to set in. Here's a picture of Jack in his West Palm Beach home with a Rufino Tamayo from his collection.
And can I just add that when I was in high school my mother used to register for courses at the nearby Tyler School of Art and then I would attend the classes because you had to be eighteen to register. I took sculpture for three years at night and lots of art history with the great Dr. Herman Gundersheimer.