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A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE WOOD SCULPTURES
OF JEFFREY VULTE
By Max H. Peters Photos by Richard Springer
Jeffrey Vulte stepped on a rainbow May 31, 2020. Richard Springer said it best: "He was an inspiration from start to end, a lodestone of friendship and genuineness. Will the circle be unbroken." The following article about Jeffrey is reprinted from Issue 5, Summer 2014.
- the Editor
Writing about Jeffrey Vulte there are many things to keep in mind, not the least being the Statute of Limitations. All joking aside, For those of us who know and love him, it is hard to see his art apart from his outsized life, but through the years all kinds of people have bought – and even stolen- his paintings and woodwork, knowing they were looking at something one of a kind. |
 Sculptor Jeffrey Vulte |
Growing up in East Haven and environs, Vulte spent four years in the Marine Corps, getting honorably discharged in ’64, just before Vietnam started. What happened was, the U.S. military decided that it couldn’t deal with Vulte and a new war at the same time. For the next two decades Vulte held a number of jobs and women, living in apartments in New Haven, Black Rock and Westport. He felt an irrepressible urge to do art and briefly attended the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and, sometime later, took painting classes at the Silvermine Institute in New Canaan.
 Nymph & Roses |
 Stick Dance |
 Diver |
 Whale Tail |
Living as he did in neighborhoods that were stuffed with professional artists , Vulte never became part of any artistic group, never modelled himself on anybody. Jeff has friends from all walks of life. One friend he made was the late designer and artist John Hermansader, best remembered for the iconic album covers he designed for the jazz label Blue Note Records. Hermansader saw something in Vulte and felt led to teach him some brushwork technique.
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 Left: Wood Spirit Center: Thin Man Above: DickHead |
In the late ‘60s Vulte bought some land in the woods outside Keene, New Hampshire and, mainly with his own hands, built a two story house which he eventually moved into full time. It was here, in the early ‘80s, that he began doing wood sculpture. In the mid-‘80s Vulte and the love of his life, his second wife, Inga, took off in a sailboat for the Caribbean, an adventure that ended up with them owning a convenience store in Key West After Inga died in ’01, a heart-broken Vulte, who’d been renting his house out to old girlfriends, came back to New Hampshire and started doing wood sculptures again. When I asked him about his plans for the future, he said ”When I see an interesting shape in wood, that’s when I’ll do another woodcarving.”
