How to Realize an Abstract Legacy

It’s hard to say who’s happiest about a novel arrangement to manage Emerson Woelffer’s estate--the 85-year-old artist, the president of the art school where he taught for 15 years or Woelffer’s longtime dealer.

A veteran painter best known for muscular abstractions, Woelffer says he is thrilled--and greatly relieved--to have dealt with his artistic legacy while he is still very much alive. Under terms of a 10-year agreement, he has donated a large body of his work to his former employer, Otis College of Art and Design. In return, the college is paying him a monthly stipend, and it has established an endowment for student scholarships in his name.

Otis President Neil Hoffman is equally delighted that the college “invented” a way to help a retired faculty member that at the same time honors him and helps fund fine-arts students.

“Pretty clever, isn’t it?” Hoffman asked, after explaining how the arrangement works. The college dipped into its own resources to set up an annuity that would pay Woelffer’s monthly stipend, Hoffman said. The scholarship endowment, which was begun with $25,000 and is expected to grow considerably, is being funded by sales of the artworks.

Dealer Manny Silverman, who has represented Woelffer for the past 10 years and is handling sales of the donated works, is also pleased with the arrangement.

“Everybody wins in this situation,” Silverman said. Declining to detail the financial arrangements, Silverman said he will maintain his long-standing relationship with Woelffer at his gallery in West Hollywood. That includes taking a commission from sales, promoting the artist and helping other galleries and museums exhibit his work. Prices for Woelffer’s work range from about $2,000 for a print to $25,000 for a prime painting.

“What pleases me most is that this ensures Emerson’s legacy,” Silverman said. “It ensures that his work will be well taken care of.” And on that, there seems to be complete agreement.

Woelffer, Hoffman and Silverman also agree that their plan is an innovative solution to a problem that confronts many artists and their families. While dealers compete fiercely to handle the estates of the relatively few renowned artists whose works are in demand, the creative legacies of less prominent figures often go begging after they die. And if the work is left to heirs, it can create a tax burden.

“With so many painters, what happens to their work is that it sits in a closet or the IRS gets something out of it,” Woelffer said. “This way, my work won’t just be in storage or going to the government.”

The agreement also guards against another potential danger: devaluing the art by dumping a large number of works on the market at one time. Conventional wisdom indicates that the value of an artist’s work escalates after the artist dies, but that is only true when the estate is well managed. If the market is flooded, even when the supply has been cut off by death, the price generally plummets.

“We will sell the work in accordance with Emerson’s wishes--and Manny’s and ours--slowly and carefully, so as not to have a negative impact on its value and on its potential to create the scholarship fund for fine-art students,” Hoffman said.

The first show, a recent mini-retrospective at Silverman’s gallery, was a success, financially and critically, so the new arrangement seems to be off to a good start. Supporters of the college purchased works, but so did other Los Angeles collectors, Silverman said. “We got wonderful support for the show,” he said. “What’s more, I think every artist in town came to see it.”

Reviewing the exhibition in The Times, critic David Pagel praised the group of 30 paintings and ripped-paper collages, created between 1947 and 1988, as “a terrific selection” of works from the artist’s “un-flaggingly vivacious oeuvre.” As Pagel put it, “Woelffer’s art travels (at an often dizzying, whiplash pace) from European Surrealism to American Pop and beyond.” Bypassing the torment and angst that energized the New York School, his brand of gestural Expressionism favors the social space implied by numbers, letters and other legible symbols.”

“The show went over very well,” Woelffer said with obvious pleasure.

Something of a local hero, Woelffer has lived in Southern California so long that he is sometimes thought to be a native. He was born in Chicago and taught art at Chicago’s Institute of Design, Black Mountain College in North Carolina and the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, then lived in Italy for three years before arriving in Los Angeles in 1959.

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During his first 14 years here, he taught at Chouinard Art Institute, which became the California Institute of the Arts. He joined the faculty of Otis Art Institute in 1974 and remained there until his retirement in 1989. (The school merged with Parsons School of Design in 1978 but became independent in 1991, when its name was changed to Otis College of Art and Design.)

Hoffman, who is doing his second administrative tour of duty at Otis, was dean of the college from 1979-83. He left to serve as president of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, then became president of California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland before returning to Otis, as president, in 1991. He met Woelffer more than 20 years ago, when the artist was on the Otis faculty, and the two have kept in touch ever since.

Hoffman said he became concerned about the fate of Woelffer’s work as the years passed. “Artists are busy making their stuff; they don’t think about the implications,” he said, “but I asked Emerson if he would like me to suggest some ways to take care of his legacy.” When Woelffer agreed, Hoffman began to brainstorm with attorney Stuart Buchalter, who chairs the Otis board of trustees’ finance committee and often deals with bequests to the college.

“Stuart’s idea was to create something that has legs,” Hoffman said. Although he and Buchalter wanted to tailor a plan to fit Woelffer’s needs, they were also interested in developing a model that might be adapted to other artists, “so that they would end up supporting kids in the future,” Hoffman said.

As the idea for the three-way arrangement began to take shape, Hoffman approached Woelffer. “I said, ‘You know, Emerson, you have not only been an outstanding artist over all these years, you have had quite an impact on the students of this college,’ ” Hoffman recalled. “Then I said, ‘What do you think about pursuing an idea where your legacy would be protected after your death, and somehow translating that into something that would commemorate your life? And we would pay you some money.’ ”

The annuity will stop after 10 years, but sales of the work will go on “until it is gone, and those funds will be put into the endowment,” Hoffman said. At first only one or two scholarships of $3,000 to $4,000 will be given. But as additional works are sold and the endowment’s investments grow, the fund is expected to yield enough money to fund dozens of concurrent scholarships, he said.

The first scholarship probably will be awarded “fairly soon,” Hoffman said. “I would like very much to have Emerson meet some of those students.”

Meanwhile, Woelffer is busy in his studio. He suffers from macular degeneration and says he doesn’t see colors properly, so he has reduced his formerly vivid palette to stark black and white. His failing eyesight also has restricted his activity, but it doesn’t appear to have dampened his spirit. “I can’t complain,” he said. “My life is pretty good.”