68115: William Sommer (American, 1867-1949) The Red Cot
William Sommer (American, 1867-1949) The Red Cottage Oil on board 20 x 26 inches (50.8 x 66.0 cm) Signed lower right: William Sommer PROVENANCE: Joseph Erdelac, Cleveland, Ohio; Hollis Taggart Gallery, New York; Private collection, Fort Myers, Florida, acquired from the above, 2005. EXHIBITED: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, "Transformations in Cleveland Art 1796-1946," 1996. LITERATURE: W.H. Robinson and D. Steinberg, Transformations in Cleveland Art 1796-1946: Community and Diversity in Early Modern America, exhibition catalogue, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, pp. 80-81, fig. 74, illustrated. William Sommer was one of America's earliest Modernist painters, and a major artistic force within the Cleveland artistic community during the 1910's until his death in 1949. His name is often mentioned in general histories of modern American art, in part because his work was lauded by the celebrated Cleveland-born poet Hart Crane. The radical asymmetrical composition, flat treatment of form, and saturated palette of greens, blue-violets and red in Sommer's The Red Cottage bears witness to the complex avenues of artistic influence by which American artists of the early 20th century (even those working outside the major art centers) fell under the sway of the new Modernist vocabularies from Europe. Cleveland, in fact, became one of the hotbeds of the Modernist movement in the United States between 1910 and 1916, owing to a heady blend of commercial factors, happy accidents, and forward-thinking personalities. Sommer was a commercial lithographer by trade, who despite having pursued academic art training in Munich in the late 19th century, became a radical Modernist painter in his spare time, largely through associations with fellow artists who had experienced European modernism firsthand. As William Robinson noted in his groundbreaking essay "Against the Grain: The Modernist Revolt" in Transformations in Cleveland Art 1796-1946, 1996, pp. 80-1: "By 1913 Sommer was experimenting with radical distortions of form and color. His principal sources of inspiration were paintings by [William and Marguerite] Zorach and [August] Biehle, reproductions in Der Blaue Reiter, and paintings by Matisse and Kandinsky he had seen in the Armory Show. While Sommer had used a tonalist palette prior to 1910, his painting The Red Cottage explodes with intense, vibrant color. The electric violets and reds of the aottage are applied wildly, as if with deliberate disregard for the heavy outlines that are unable to contain them. The unpainted areas around the cottage illustrate why Sommer's paintings were sometimes criticized for lacking finish; however, he never concerned himself with such orthodox aesthetic criteria. Rather than control, he sought spontaneous, intuitive, emotional experience—revelatory bursts of charged ecstatic energy." The years between 1912 and 1914 were a golden one for Sommer. He was painting with a kind of freedom and brilliance in the wake of learning about the work of Der Blaue Reiter group from fellow Clevelander August Biehle, who was freshly back from Munich and infected with enthusiasm for the modern German work, notably the chromatic rhythms in the paintings of Franz Marc. Together with Biehle, Sommer began painting in the beautiful Rocky River Valley, which was only a mile from Sommer's home on the west side of Cleveland. They had befriended an accomplished painter named Anna Schlather Hobson, who had a lavish ninety-seven-acre estate on the banks of the Rocky River, and would often invite the pair over to enjoy an afternoon of painting there. The estate, built by Anna's successful brewer grandfather, Leonard Schlather, was famous for its spectacular Japanese garden. It overlooked the river and featured a red Japanese footbridge, stone lanterns, rock walls, and wonderful views of the stunning concrete bridge connecting Lakewood with Rocky River built in 1910. The Red Cottage belongs to the cluster of outstanding works Sommer painted on the Schlather estate in 1912-14, and according to art historian Lawrence Waldman, the "cottage" actually housed the springhouse for the estate. It was situated down the hill from the gardens, and had been used to pump water to the extensive wheat fields on the property. The wheat was grown to feed the horses, which were essential to the family's large and lucrative brewery business. In addition to their brewery enterprise, the Schlathers were important figures in the establishment of the Cleveland Metroparks. Many thanks to Lawrence Waldman for sharing his extensive knowledge about the work of William Sommer for this catalogue note. HID03101242017
Condition Report: Minor frame wear with abrasions and slight lifting in corners; under UV light, there appear to be scattered spots of inpaint in margins and a couple spots in trees at upper right quadrant.
Framed Dimensions 26.5 X 32.75 Inches
Estimate
Time, Location
Auction House
William Sommer (American, 1867-1949) The Red Cottage Oil on board 20 x 26 inches (50.8 x 66.0 cm) Signed lower right: William Sommer PROVENANCE: Joseph Erdelac, Cleveland, Ohio; Hollis Taggart Gallery, New York; Private collection, Fort Myers, Florida, acquired from the above, 2005. EXHIBITED: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, "Transformations in Cleveland Art 1796-1946," 1996. LITERATURE: W.H. Robinson and D. Steinberg, Transformations in Cleveland Art 1796-1946: Community and Diversity in Early Modern America, exhibition catalogue, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, pp. 80-81, fig. 74, illustrated. William Sommer was one of America's earliest Modernist painters, and a major artistic force within the Cleveland artistic community during the 1910's until his death in 1949. His name is often mentioned in general histories of modern American art, in part because his work was lauded by the celebrated Cleveland-born poet Hart Crane. The radical asymmetrical composition, flat treatment of form, and saturated palette of greens, blue-violets and red in Sommer's The Red Cottage bears witness to the complex avenues of artistic influence by which American artists of the early 20th century (even those working outside the major art centers) fell under the sway of the new Modernist vocabularies from Europe. Cleveland, in fact, became one of the hotbeds of the Modernist movement in the United States between 1910 and 1916, owing to a heady blend of commercial factors, happy accidents, and forward-thinking personalities. Sommer was a commercial lithographer by trade, who despite having pursued academic art training in Munich in the late 19th century, became a radical Modernist painter in his spare time, largely through associations with fellow artists who had experienced European modernism firsthand. As William Robinson noted in his groundbreaking essay "Against the Grain: The Modernist Revolt" in Transformations in Cleveland Art 1796-1946, 1996, pp. 80-1: "By 1913 Sommer was experimenting with radical distortions of form and color. His principal sources of inspiration were paintings by [William and Marguerite] Zorach and [August] Biehle, reproductions in Der Blaue Reiter, and paintings by Matisse and Kandinsky he had seen in the Armory Show. While Sommer had used a tonalist palette prior to 1910, his painting The Red Cottage explodes with intense, vibrant color. The electric violets and reds of the aottage are applied wildly, as if with deliberate disregard for the heavy outlines that are unable to contain them. The unpainted areas around the cottage illustrate why Sommer's paintings were sometimes criticized for lacking finish; however, he never concerned himself with such orthodox aesthetic criteria. Rather than control, he sought spontaneous, intuitive, emotional experience—revelatory bursts of charged ecstatic energy." The years between 1912 and 1914 were a golden one for Sommer. He was painting with a kind of freedom and brilliance in the wake of learning about the work of Der Blaue Reiter group from fellow Clevelander August Biehle, who was freshly back from Munich and infected with enthusiasm for the modern German work, notably the chromatic rhythms in the paintings of Franz Marc. Together with Biehle, Sommer began painting in the beautiful Rocky River Valley, which was only a mile from Sommer's home on the west side of Cleveland. They had befriended an accomplished painter named Anna Schlather Hobson, who had a lavish ninety-seven-acre estate on the banks of the Rocky River, and would often invite the pair over to enjoy an afternoon of painting there. The estate, built by Anna's successful brewer grandfather, Leonard Schlather, was famous for its spectacular Japanese garden. It overlooked the river and featured a red Japanese footbridge, stone lanterns, rock walls, and wonderful views of the stunning concrete bridge connecting Lakewood with Rocky River built in 1910. The Red Cottage belongs to the cluster of outstanding works Sommer painted on the Schlather estate in 1912-14, and according to art historian Lawrence Waldman, the "cottage" actually housed the springhouse for the estate. It was situated down the hill from the gardens, and had been used to pump water to the extensive wheat fields on the property. The wheat was grown to feed the horses, which were essential to the family's large and lucrative brewery business. In addition to their brewery enterprise, the Schlathers were important figures in the establishment of the Cleveland Metroparks. Many thanks to Lawrence Waldman for sharing his extensive knowledge about the work of William Sommer for this catalogue note. HID03101242017
Condition Report: Minor frame wear with abrasions and slight lifting in corners; under UV light, there appear to be scattered spots of inpaint in margins and a couple spots in trees at upper right quadrant.
Framed Dimensions 26.5 X 32.75 Inches
Estimate
Time, Location
Auction House
