Erving received bachelor’s degrees from Northwestern University and Notre Dame and earned a law degree from Northwestern University. He practiced law in Cheyenne before being drawn to the oil and gas industry. In 1951, the same year he married Joyce (née Mandel), he founded the Wolf Land Company, which later became the Inexco Oil Company. Under Erving’s leadership, Inexco discovered Wyoming’s 200-million-barrel Hilight Oil Field and its four-trillion-cubic-foot Madden Gas Field, one of the largest natural gas reserves in the United States, as well as the Key Lake Uranium Mine in Saskatchewan, Canada, which once produced 15 percent of the world’s uranium.

Although Joyce was born and raised in Brooklyn, the West played an important part in her life. The day after their wedding, Joyce and Erving returned to Cheyenne, where all three of their children were born, and then moved to Denver for eleven years. She was instrumental in building and overseeing the family's cattle ranch in Ridgway, Colorado, where she spent almost every summer, while Erving, who became a captain of industry, led the Wolf Land Company.

Fitting of their successes, the couple began their collecting journey in the 1960s with American Indian rugs, pottery, and jewelry from trading posts in the Four Corners area. The Wolfs embodied the connoisseur model of collecting, one built on scholarship, patience, and a way of living with art that speaks to the timeless quality of the works in their collection.

Nearly two decades later, Joyce and Erving became major benefactors of the nation’s greatest museums and other institutions, instilling a passion and curiosity of art to those who carry on their legacy. The couple donated numerous works of American art to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, where Joyce was a founding member of the William Cullen Bryant Fellows, and The Erving and Joyce Wolf Gallery was dedicated in the museum's American Wing in 1980. In 2001, Erving Wolf was elected an Honorary Trustee of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Of the major gifts made to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, two are particularly significant – a large silver presentation vase made in Philadelphia by Fletcher and Gardiner that was given in 1825 to Governor DeWitt Clinton to commemorate the opening of the Erie Canal, and Martin Johnson Heade's 1859 painting The Coming Storm, a masterpiece of American Luminism.

The couple also loaned and gave American artworks and sculpture to the Denver Art Museum and to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in honor of their late daughter, Diane Wolf. With his brothers, Erving donated the Leon and Dora Wolf Law Building at the University of Colorado School of Law, in honor of their parents.

Iconic collectors at a time when Americans were just beginning to preserve their own history, the Wolfs were staples in Sotheby's salerooms. With their children in tow, the couple would sit for hours while taking in the distinctive rhythms of our auctions and learning how to identify art and objects of exceptional artistry and quality. Each piece being a small part of this story, The Wolf Family Collection grew as the family’s interests continued to expand into the next generation. They bestowed their curiosity and fervent passion for collecting onto their children who each carried this through to their personal and professional lives.

  A Glimpse Inside the Collection
American Art
“Few collections so seamlessly bridge the currents of American art across centuries as does the Wolf collection, which, through this carefully selected group of paintings and sculptures, articulates a unique story of American history from Colonial America through the 20th century. It is a deeply personal collection that wonderfully captures the breadth of the Wolf’s areas of interest and their deep and abiding passion for American art.”

Kayla Carlsen, Sotheby’s Head of American Art
The American paintings from The Wolf Family Collection are unmatched in their exceptional quality and broad scope. They represent the very best from a range of periods, subjects, and styles spanning the history of American art, from 18th century portraits to 19th century landscapes to 20th century modernism. The centerpiece of this vast and important collection is William Merritt Chase’s masterpiece of American painting, with portrait highlights by John Singleton Copley and Gilbert Stuart—founding members of the American art scene in the 18th and 19th centuries—as well as depictions of the American landscape, including Hudson River School paintings by Sanford Robinson Gifford and Worthington Whittredge. European influences representing the cultural interchange that took place in the 18th and 19th centuries are embodied in works by Winslow Homer and John La Farge, with work by American modernists Maurice B. Prendergast and Charles Demuth highlighting the technical, cultural, and artistic achievements of the 20th century.

Additionally, a carefully curated selection of important bronzes in The Wolf Family Collection surveys the finest offerings of American sculpture by the most renowned artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and is among the most impressive private holdings of American sculpture ever assembled. As with the broader collection, the American bronzes span various geographic regions and historical periods in a manner that presents a comprehensive study of American history through sculpture. The range of the collection includes multiple works by Paul Manship and Augustus Saint-Gaudens, offering a unique perspective into their practices.