Artist: William Sommer (American, 1867–1949)
Medium: Oil on masonite
Signature: Estate stamp signature lower right
Dimensions:
21 in. h. x 27.5 in. w., board
30 in. h. x 36 in. w., as framed
Description:
William Sommer’s Brandywine Landscapes
At one point William Sommer seemed destined to go down in history as one of America’s great Modernist painters. Yet while Sommer remains a superstar among scholars and collectors of regional art, today his work is only moderately famous on a national level. One possible explanation for this omission is that Sommer inadvertently alienated a portion of his audience by refusing to fully commit to one mode of image making. Sommer’s non-binary approach to representation and abstraction is perhaps most evident in his paintings of Brandywine, Ohio, in which Sommer approaches traditional, even mundane subject matter from a Modernist standpoint, saturating Brandywine’s sprawling hills with Fauve-like color and altering the natural landscape to create enchanting distortions in perspective.
Other works by William Sommer
The Crane Fountain, c. 1914-15 William Sommer
Spring Beauty, c. 1920 William Sommer
Cows, c. 1920 William Sommer
Tiger Boy, c. 1925 William Sommer
Portrait of June, 1928 William Sommer
A Monument to Bondage William Sommer
Adam & Eve William Sommer
The Band William Sommer
Nude with Umbrella & Figures, 1934 William Sommer
Seated Nude, ca. 1918 William Sommer
Seated Child (Portrait of Tess Dominski), c. 1926 William Sommer
Small Boy with Apples, c. 1930 William Sommer