SOMMER FREDERICK (1905 1999) Venus Jupiter and Mars

Sale 2146 - Lot 406

Price Realized: $ 14,400

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 15,000 - $ 25,000

SOMMER, FREDERICK (1905-1999)
"Venus, Jupiter and Mars." Silver print, 9 1/2x7 1/2 inches (24.1x19 cm.), with Sommer's signature, title, date and inscription, in pencil, "For John Weiss/From F. S.," on mount verso. 1949; printed 1980

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Additional Details

From the photographer; to John Weiss; to Alexandra R. Marshall.

Venus, Jupiter & Mars, cover and 23.
In 1980, Mr. Weiss, a professor at the University of Delaware conceived, curated and edited the exhibition catalogue for "Venus, Jupiter & Mars: The Photographs of Frederick Sommer" at the Delaware Art Museum. This exhibition included over one hundred photographs dating from the late 1930s-1970s. This photograph was given to Mr. Weiss by Sommer in appreciation for his efforts.
To Frederick Sommer art and science were inextricably connected, and photography, when in the proper hands, proved to be the height of technology and art. Sommer was trained as a landscape architect, but was also accomplished in the painting and drawing mediums, studying all of the "greats." Well-read in physics, poetry, philosophy and literature, and with his strong interests in music and mathematics, Sommer always had a variety of ideas in mind and choose photography to link them all together.
Sommer would acquire objects, saving them for years before constructing a photograph and would make use of other artists' lithographs for backgrounds, slicing up their prints and piecing them back together to reveal a new and seamless image. He would create cameraless negatives by transfer or cut-up paper into patterns, then photograph them to create odd juxtapositions that might intermingle loved ones with decaying carcasses.