Art. Music. Theater.

For all of her 79 years, these have been as vital a part of Mary Wolfe’s life as breathing. As a girl growing up just north of New York City, she would venture with her family into the city to marvel at the museums and thrill to the theater. Later in life she became an artist herself, and a student and teacher of art history. And for everything the arts have given to her, she has given back to the arts in time, energy, expertise, and money.

For this extraordinary dedication, on Wednesday she will receive the 2011 Governor’s Award for the Arts. One of seven recipients this year out of more than 70 nominations, she will be given the award in the category of arts patron.

"I think it’s certainly a wonderful award and it couldn’t go to a better person," said her longtime friend Susan Reams, herself a recipient of the award in 2008.

"I would just say that hers is a life devoted to the arts, to the appreciation of it, the beauty of it.… She has great imagination and she finds joy in areas revolving around the arts. She has an art history education and then she’s been able to back it up with how she conducts her life."

Mrs. Wolfe’s Perrysburg home is filled with the art she and her husband of 56 years, Fritz Wolfe, have collected ("We are very fortunate and we know it," she said on the phone from Florida, where they spend the winter). When they buy art, she leans more toward paintings while his interest lies in sculpture.

"It’s really a little of this and a little of that. We’re not just collecting one period and one kind of thing, it’s a mixture. As you can imagine, it’s not vastly important stuff. We do have some nice things that are sort of museum quality, but I don’t like to get into that too much," she said.

This modesty is an essential part of her personality, said Katerina Ray, director of the Bowling Green State University School of Art, "and that is why she needs people to brag on her."

Mrs. Wolfe’s association with Bowling Green is long and deep, beginning when she got her Master’s degree in art history there. She ran the school’s art gallery and also taught art — an uncommon occurrence at a school that typically does not hire its own graduates, Ms. Ray said. One of her most popular lectures was about Michelangelo’s paintings on the ceiling of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel.

"Years later, I would get a postcard from some ex-student from Rome saying, ‘Boy, I’m glad I had that class before I saw the Sistine Chapel,’" Mrs. Wolfe said.

In 2005, the Wolfes donated $1.5 million to the school to help construct what will be known as the Wolfe Center for the Arts, a 93,000 square-foot, $40 million building to house theater, film, music, and digital art classrooms, studios, theaters, and performance spaces. With the Wolfes’ quiet urging, the school sought out an internationally recognized, cutting-edge architect to design the building. The school settled on the Norwegian firm Snøhetta, which has since won the prestigious Mies Van der Rohe Award for contemporary architecture.

Scheduled to open in December, the building’s modern sleek and angular design is already raising eyebrows in Bowling Green. But it has also received considerable interest in the world of art and architecture, said Ms. Ray, herself an architect. "What the Wolfes have made possible at BGSU is the equivalent of what happened at [the University of Toledo] when UT hired Frank Gehry to design the Center for Visual Arts," she said.

Mrs. Wolfe is amused by the mini-controversy over the building’s bold, contemporary design. Along with her love of the art of the Italian Renaissance, she has an equally fierce passion for modern art. Although she said that most artistic movements take a generation to be widely accepted, she has little patience for people who disparage contemporary art as being unworthy or unartistic.

"People say that at a cocktail party, and Fritz says I rise like a trout to the bait and explain why. I think it’s so complicated because everything about modern art is so specialized now. You have to study it like a foreign language, you have to study the different fields and different types to understand it. Generally, it takes a bit of study before you can enjoy it.

"It takes a bit of study, but it’s really, really worth it when you do," she said.

Mrs. Wolfe’s husband Fritz — short for Frederic — founded or ran several businesses, particularly in the long-term health care field, including what is now known as Health Care & Retirement Corp. and Health Care REIT. This continued success — he is not retired — allows them to be generous toward a number of charities and causes. They have given significant amounts to all of the major arts groups in the area, including UT, the Toledo Symphony, Toledo Opera, the Valentine Theatre — Mrs. Wolfe was instrumental in getting the iconic 70-foot mural of past stars installed — and Maumee Valley Country Day School, which Mr. Wolfe attended as a boy.

A $2 million contribution to the Toledo Museum of Art is helping to turn a formerly empty space into a major gallery for contemporary art.

"Whatever Mary does, and Fritz as well, they don’t just give money but they pitch in and they help participate" by serving on charitable boards and committees, Ms. Reams said. "There is a big difference between just giving money and participating to help the nonprofits be even better as an entity."

But this volunteer work comes at a cost: Mrs. Wolfe does not have time to explore her creative side.

"Painting? I haven’t done any in so long, I’m embarrassed," she said. "I have been on too many boards. I keep saying I’m getting off the boards and back to painting, but I’d better hurry up."

A bad leg keeps her from playing tennis anymore, but she and her husband are still prolific travelers. On a recent trip to Italy, they rented a villa in Tuscany. Friends and family — they have three daughters and six grandchildren — came to visit.

"We could go on day trips to every town within two or three hours of driving and have something wonderful to see, so it was fabulous. That’s my idea of heaven," she said.

Mrs. Wolfe was born on Christmas day, earlier than expected. Her parents were living in Boston, and her mother’s parents were in Manchester, N.H. Not expecting anything drastic to happen, her parents went to New Hampshire for a holiday visit. She became a surprise Christmas present.

"My father, thank God, put his foot down. My mother wanted to name me Merry," she said.

She spent much of her childhood in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., near New York City, and considers herself lucky to have a family that exposed her to all the wonders of the city’s culture when she was a girl. She earned her undergraduate degree in art history at Wellesley College, and there, her senior year, she met the man who would become her husband.

A friend had a date with a student at the Harvard Business School, but he didn’t have a car. He asked a friend and fellow student to drive him to Wellesley. Her friend implored her to please go on a blind date with the driver of the car, Fritz Wolfe. She repeatedly declined but her resolve wore down and eventually she relented.

The 56 years they have been married have been years full of art, travel, family, and entertaining. And the last 10 or 15 years have had the added spark of major, heartfelt philanthropy.

"It’s made life so much more interesting and wonderful for us. It gives you a great feeling. Of course, Fritz supports other things, universities and hospitals, not just the arts. But the arts give you such a joy," she said.

Contact Daniel Neman at dneman@theblade.com or 419-724-6155.

First Published May 8, 2011, 4:30 a.m.