"Noted Photo Artist Visits in Aledo After
 10-Day  Lecture Series in Chicago"
 The Times Record, Aledo, Illinois
 December 24, 1952

(Sommer had nothing to do with the Viola nurse article but what a coincidence)

 

Current Events - updated June 12, 2008
 

On this page we will try to keep up on happenings related
to Frederick Sommer (
b. September 7, 1905 – d. January 23, 1999). Auction offerings and results we are informed of, exhibits and more if possible. Additional information is posted as it becomes available.

Click for info about the development of a catalogue raisonne


Current & Upcoming exhibits  –

Yale University Art Gallery "From Any Angle: Photographs from the Collection of Doris Bry" May 23 - September 7, 2008 includes an early landscape by Frederick Sommer.
Our thanks to Sarah Stolfa and Ash Anderson for their excellent correspondence on this project.

Haunch of Venison, London will potentially include a piece in an exhibition this fall (Sept. 12 to Nov. 21), and in late January 2009 a significant group at the Scottsdale Museum of Art ( SMOCA ).  Dates and further details will be posted when confirmed with the gallery.
 
Book Info -
Winter, 2006 of Photo-Eye Magazine includes an article covering Sommer's publications. Be sure to scroll down to 'old and rare' for another page.

David Levi-Strauss has written an article on Frederick Sommer in a recent issue of Aperture (Fall 2006) that is worth reading.

The Art of Frederick Sommer: Photography, Drawing, Collage

The new book is widely available with several reviews since the release in May 2005 Distributed by Yale University Press, New Haven and London (ISBN 0-300-10783-8), for the Frederick & Frances Sommer Foundation.





 

Independent Publishers chose The Art of Frederick Sommer as winner of the Fine Art category in the national competition of books published in 2005 (announced May 2006).

Press release (May 2006) for the
ARLIS Wittenborn Memorial Book Awards where the The Art of Frederick Sommer was one of six books recognized for excellence in art publications at the 34th annual conference held this year in Banff, Alberta, Canada.

Golden Light Award Book of the Year 2005,  from the
Maine Photographic Workshops announced October 13 and the
Full List of winners and honorable mentions for all categories.


MUSIC -




The music from Consent to Gravity
as composed by
Christopher Eastburn
is now available on CD from Chris's listing at CD Baby.





To elaborate on the connection, C.E. -
"In thinking about writing vocal music for ANY project, a primary question is "What are the words?"   Very fortunately Frederick Sommer left a treasure trove of those, in his writings, poems and lectures.  These contain wonderfully rich lines such as "Ideas and thoughts collide and sort themselves out in these fruitful collisions",  "The Art of Vermeer must have been there on the morning of creation", "Ideas and art are the possibility of an answer tomorrow."  

So how does a text become a song?  In approaching a set of words composers or songwriters often consider the images, meaning and feelings contained within the texts.  Words or passages such as "collide", or "Vermeer", or "morning of creation" can trigger musical ideas or possibilities.   The speech rhythms  of a text also come in to play.  You speak it aloud and listen to the rhythms and inflections.  They can indicate a feeling of meter and melodic shape.   Your concepts and intuitions may start to meld.  What you are doing musically can become consciously and subconsciously interwoven with the feeling of the text.  You may feel in the end that you wrote very little and just listened carefully for the music already there- in this case, the music sounding in Frederick Sommer's brilliant texts.


'Recent' Auction Results -
auction results includes buyer's premium

Recent Online (eBay) auction results -

Currently noted on eBay that sellers are listing -

Upcoming Art Auctions -