Townsend Durant Wolfe III -- a wry-humored, cigarette-smoking artist who is credited with launching a renaissance in the state during his 34 years as director of the Arkansas Arts Center -- died from end-stage heart failure Saturday at his Little Rock home. He was 81.
"He died so peacefully," his wife, Brooks Wolfe, said. "He went out with much, much love."
Townsend Wolfe, who was born in Hartsville, S.C., moved to Little Rock in 1968 when he was selected as the director and chief curator of the Arts Center.
By the time he retired in 2002, the Arts Center's annual attendance had ballooned from 80,000 to 343,000, and its collection of works was valued at more than $35 million.
"His impact is enormous," said Todd Herman, the current executive director of the Arkansas Arts Center. "He willed the Arts Center into being through determination and extreme hard work."
Townsend Wolfe took his passion for art on the road, curating shows for other institutions around the state and advising individuals on private collections.
"His greatest contribution was how he changed the state by bringing art to Little Rock," said the Rev. Christoph Keller III of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. Keller has known Wolfe since 1967.
"On his watch, the Arts Center grew into what it is today," Keller said. "He made art very central to cultural life in Little Rock and to the state in a way it never had been before."
Townsend Wolfe established the Children's Theatre at the Arts Center and created an "artmobile" to take art to children around the state.
"His passion for art was his greatest character trait," said Curtis Finch, a retired Little Rock businessman and a former Arts Center trustee. "He wanted to make everybody a part of it. The Arts Center was not an elitist organization at all. He catered to people from all walks of life. It was him who insisted that there be no admission charge. The Arts Center was there for everybody."
In 1985, Wolfe opened the Decorative Arts Museum in the Pike-Fletcher-Terry House, an 1840 Greek-revival mansion that was given to the city for use by the Arts Center. The museum features exhibitions of decorative arts and contemporary crafts.
Wolfe's contribution to the arts is perhaps best symbolized by the works on paper that he made the focus of the center's collection.
"He was the most important person in cultural affairs in Little Rock for nearly 40 years," Finch said. "He created the best contemporary drawing collection in the United States. He encouraged people in Little Rock to make drawings part of their art collections."
Some of Wolfe's personal pieces -- including drawings, prints and oil paintings -- are now part of the Arts Center collection.
"He got sustenance from art," Herman said. "Truly, the arts in Arkansas owe a lot to Townsend Wolfe. He worked tirelessly to make the arts part of our lives."
Ironically, it was his library and not his art collection that drew Brooks Wolfe to her future husband 17 years ago.
She had volunteered at the Arts Center one night and was invited to Townsend Wolfe's home for wine and cheese the next night.
"He showed me his library, and it was full of Walker Percy, Richard Ford and Saul Bellow," she said. "It was a match made in heaven. We were in love within 90 minutes."
The chemistry between them that first night was overwhelming, Brooks Wolfe said.
"We didn't know what to do with each other so we headed down to the EZ Mart on 17th and Broadway for cigarettes," she said, laughing. "He always smoked those skinny, More menthol cigarettes. He had those in his hands in every picture of him taken. He stopped smoking about eight years ago."
The couple married in a small ceremony 2½ months later.
"He's the sexiest man that ever walked the earth," she said. "He had the voice of God with that melodious South Carolina accent. I hope God doesn't mind me saying that."
Townsend Wolfe's beloved dachshunds were part of the package. He had owned dachshunds since his 20s, drawn to them by the breed's devotion and unconditional love.
"When we got married, he was really worried about the dogs because they had been sleeping with him in the bed for years," Brooks Wolfe said. "I told him, 'I love you, but I can't sleep with your dogs.' He got some little sleeping bags, and they stayed in those at the foot of the bed."
Years later, while her husband was in a rehabilitation center for treatment of hydrocephalus -- fluid on the brain -- Brooks Wolfe said she got lonely and let the dogs back into the bed.
"It's their house," she said, laughing. "When he came back from rehab, the dogs owned the bed."
As his health declined rapidly in the past five days, Brooks Wolfe said, someone was rubbing his feet or his hands 24 hours a day to make him as comfortable as possible.
"I whispered to him, 'Please let go. Please let go. I'm good. The kids are good. Let go, and you'll be in glory,'" she said.
Two days before he died the last words he spoke were, "I love you, Brooks."
His death was "incredibly peaceful and absolutely beautiful," Brooks Wolfe said.
"Taking care of him will always be the most important charge of my life," she said. "It has been an honor to be his wife and, in the end, to take care of him."
State Desk on 01/15/2017