Emily Wolfson

Emily Wilson Wolfson died on Thursday, June 18 at the Spring Creek Nursing Home in Murray. She was born Emily King Wilson, the daughter of Joseph Thomas Wilson and Mary Compton King, in her grandfather's house in Corydon (Henderson County), Kentucky on September 2, 1915. She was predeceased by her parents; her husband, Alfred M. Wolfson; her sister, Jean Wilson Trigg; her brother, Joseph Thomas Wilson III; and her stepdaughter, Nancy Wolfson. She is survived by her stepdaughter, Marianne Reichlin; her step grandchildren, Michele Katz-Reichlin and H. Paolo Reichlin; her nieces, Emily Trigg Mabee and Jane Foster Trigg; her nephew, Joseph Wilson Trigg; and by a step great granddaughter, Gabriela Reichlin; four great nephews, Thomas G. Cheaney, George D. Teschner, John T. Teschner and Peter W. Trigg; a great niece, Mary K. Trigg; and a great great niece, Emily W. Cheaney.


Emily Wolfson grew up in Wilson Station, a little community near Corydon where her father had a farm. When he lost the farm in the Great Depression, the family moved to Henderson, where she graduated from Barrett Manual Training High School in 1933. Her artistic abilities won her scholarship to the Newcomb School of Art (now incorporated into Tulane University) 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, as it then was, from 1941 until 1944. That year she left Murray to work at the Evansville Museum and Evansville College (now Evansville University) from 1944 to 1948. She then 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. She obtained her own loom and for many years put her first efforts into weaving. In 1957 a weaving of hers won Best in Show at the Midwest Designer and Craftsman Exhibition at the Chicago Art Institute. Since then her works have been widely exhibited and have won numerous awards.
In 1958 she married Alfred M. Wolfson, Professor of Biology, who had recently lost his first wife, Marcelle, and she moved back to Murray. She and Professor Wolfson were happily married until his death in 1990. She felt herself a second mother to his family. She and her husband particularly enjoyed a monthly Great Books Club and sailing on Kentucky Lake in their boat, the Si Bon. She taught art and art history at Murray until she retired in 1969. Throughout her time in Murray she was active in civic affairs. She shared with her husband a concern for the environment that led, among other things to support of the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Nature Conservancy.
She not only produced art but also promoted the arts. In 1961 she helped found 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 sixties she also assisted her friend Naoma Powell to establish 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 until prevented by age. In recognition of such work, Kentucky 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.
A memorial service for Emily Wolfson will be held on the campus of Murray State University at the Heritage Hall at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, June 27th, 2015. In lieu of flowers, donations in her memory may be made to the Murray Art Guild, 500 North 4th Street, Murray, Kentucky 42071 Online condolences can be made at, www.thejhchurchillfuneralhome.com The J.H. Churchill Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.