Frederick Sommer
American, 1905 - 1999
Became a naturalized US citizen in 1939
Died on January 23, 1999, at his home in Prescott, Arizona.
American photographer, painter and theorist of Italian birth. After studying landscape architecture with his father Carlos Sommer in Brazil (1916–25) and at Cornell University (MA 1927), he worked as a landscape architect in Brazil until 1930. While in Switzerland convalescing after tuberculosis in 1930, he became interested in modern art and acquired his first camera. He moved to Tucson, AZ, in 1931 and settled in Prescott, AZ, in 1935. He held his first exhibition, of watercolours, in Chicago in 1934 and discovered the graphic aspect of musical scores. His interest in photography was increased after seeing prints by Edward Weston in 1936. He bought a large-format camera in 1938 and held his first one-man show as a photographer in 1946 (Santa Barbara, CA, Mus. A.). His links with European art were strengthened by his friendship with Max Ernst, whom he met in 1941.
In his work of 1938–48 Sommer displayed an interest in disturbing subject-matter, for example Untitled (or Amputated Foot, 1939; Cambridge, MA, Fogg), an image of great precision. Other works showed a concern with subjects as found, such as animal carcasses (e.g. Horse, 1945; Newport Beach, CA, Dr and Mrs Eugene Spiritus priv. col.), desert landscapes (e.g. Colorado River, 1942; Tucson, U. AZ, Cent. Creative Phot.) and refuse (e.g. Glass, 1943; N.Y., MOMA). In addition, he began studies of his own assemblages, for example Untitled, Negative No. 66 (or Chicken Parts, 1939; Los Angeles, Stephen White priv. col.), and objects found in the desert reflecting human habitation (e.g. The Giant, 1946; Sacramento, CA, Crocker A. Mus), as well as portraits set against weathered backdrops (e.g. Livia, 1948; Tucson, U. AZ, Cent. Creative Phot.). In 1947 he departed from straight photography by adding handwork to the negative (e.g. Flower and Frog, 1947–8; priv. col.). Two years later he began experimenting with camera-less images (also called ‘synthetic negatives’), images similar to photograms produced by exposure through a constructed negative on to photographic paper, for example Smoke on Glass (1962; Bloomington, IN U. A. Mus.). He continued to produce such images until the early 1960s, after which he began work on blurred, soft-focus and cut-paper images and on his Dürer Variations (e.g. No. 2, 1966; Tucson, U. AZ, Cent. Creative Phot.), a series of images produced by photographing folded reproductions of engravings (1966 to the early 1970s). He began to write on aesthetics in 1962 (a subject he studied in Japan in 1969), and he integrated a range of aesthetic, musical, artistic and scientific material into his teaching programme at Prescott College, AZ (1966–71). The Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson, contains the most important archive of his work; its holdings include photographs, drawings, musical scores, recorded lectures and writings.
Retrieved From Oxford Art Online; http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T079716?q=Frederick+Sommer&search=quick&pos=1&_start=1#firsthit (Accessed Feb. 16, 2012)
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