ELIZABETH FOX-WOLFE

1926 - 2019

FOX-WOLFE, Elizabeth Beloved Artist & Free Spirit Artist Elizabeth Fox-Wolfe died suddenly, at 92, on January 19th. She had been active until the end: painting, sketching, taking 4 mile walks, and enjoying life and the extended family. She created the iconic Fist and Flask, that identifies the organization Science for the People. Using the nom de plume Alphabet she contributed the art work in the early editions of the epiphenomenal magazine. A slide show of those drawings may be seen at http://science-for-the-people.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Alphabet-Art-0600-FINAL-wX.pdf Elizabeth was the daughter of Dan Fox, the artist who created the Monopoly Man for the Parker Bros. Game in 1936 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Uncle_Pennybags). Her talent, nurtured in the art-filled environment of the family home, was brought to maturity at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, as a student of Karl Zerbe. There she met and married Jack Wolfe, one of the Boston Expressionists. The marriage was relatively short, but produced two children, John Wolfe of Stoughton and Wendy Wolfe of southern Vermont, the mother of Elizabeth's grandchildren Devan and Gerik Acker. Elizabeth was the eldest of Dan and Rebecca Fox's three children. Her two brothers, Herbert, 89, of Lynn and Stephen, 85, of South Easton, provided Elizabeth with eleven nieces and nephews and an abundance of grandnieces and nephews. She was loved and appreciated by all in the extended family. It was not uncommon for her to express enthusiasm for the art work of the children or to sketch for them. Throughout her life, Elizabeth produced a substantial number of abstract paintings of organic and geometric forms in flattened space, filled many notebooks with pen and ink drawings, and created works in ceramic and mixed media. She travelled throughout Europe, spent four years in Israel, and stayed for periods of time in Dharamshala, India, in Thailand, and other Southeast Asian countries. Her travels fed her creativity, and in the case of India and Asia, were extensions of her Buddhist practice. She also worked in several trades: as a fisherwoman off Provincetown and in the Gulf of Mexico, in the fish factories of Gloucester, as a sheetrock installer, on farms in upstate New York, cutting cane in Cuba, etc. Whatever she was doing, wherever she was travelling, her perceptions as an artist were always present. Her first excited remarks on encountering persons or things, would be on the colors, the juxtaposition of shapes, the lines, the textures, etc. Although fully confident in her own abilities, she was always learning—studying other artists, taking a ceramics course, obtaining an MFA from UMass in her senior years, etc. Elizabeth Fox-Wolfe was a free spirit, someone you would never forget once you met her. She loved things and animals and people. As a Buddhist, her spirit life continues. Perhaps somewhere a talented child is sensing within herself the power to carry through a life of love and art. A memorial service is being planned for the Spring.

View the online memorial for Elizabeth FOX-WOLFE