William Sommer Returns to the Spotlight

A new retrospective at WOLFS Gallery revisits one of Cleveland’s most original Modernists and makes a strong case that Sommer is one of America’s most underrecognized artists.

More than seventy-five years after his death and a memorial exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1950, William Sommer is once again commanding attention in Northeast Ohio. William Sommer: Visionary Modernist, which opened May 8 at WOLFS Gallery in Beachwood, and remains on view through August 15, presents the artist not as a regional footnote but as one of America’s most talented, prolific, and unjustly overlooked Modernists.

Sommer has long held a pivotal place in Ohio art history. A master lithographer by trade, he was lured to Cleveland in 1907 with the prospect of creating theatrical and movie posters for Otis Lithograph, where he continued to work until 1929, drawing on years of experience as an apprentice at the Calvert Lithograph Company in Detroit. Despite working six days a week at Otis, Sommer remained committed to his aspirations in fine art, dedicating his evenings and Sundays to independent creative work, much of which is showcased in this exhibition.

What lends this retrospective its particular significance is its depth. The core of the exhibition draws from the sixty-year collection of art historian and former museum curator Martin Lerner, who first encountered Sommer’s work while serving on the curatorial staff of the Oriental Department at the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1966. Lerner passed by the unassuming Cleveland School Gallery in the museum each day while heading to the research library and always stopped to admire Sommer’s work. He was dumbfounded that Sommer was left out of the 1913 Armory Show and the cannon of American art history in general. “To my eye,” Lerner stated, “Sommer was the most aesthetically satisfying, the most visually interesting of all the artists exhibited in that small gallery”–even more so than those Cleveland artists included in the Armory Show, such as Henry Keller and Alex Warshawsky. Lerner boldly stated at the start of the exhibition that it’s extraordinary that Sommer is not featured in every anthology and history book on American painting.  Lerner purchased his first painting by Sommer in 1967, a Fauvist rendition of a Rocky River landscape from the Schlather estate titled Noontime, c. 1912-13. Coincidentally, before learning this, I decided this was a top contender for the best work in the exhibition. Perhaps the most memorable moment of the exhibition came unexpectedly, when I arrived at the gallery at the same time as Lerner, and witnessed his visible joy and emotion at seeing the artist’s works installed together, framed, and as a cohesive whole. He stated that Sommers was “a man who created images”, and the exhibition is a special treat “to anyone who has eyes and likes art.”

The works in the exhibition trace William Sommer’s artistic development from the late nineteenth century, when he concentrated on meticulous portraiture and illustration, through his later artistic evolution and full embrace of Modernism in the 1920s and 1930s. The exhibition also traces his stylistic transitions and the varied subjects and mediums he explored and experimented with throughout his storied career. One of the earliest pieces in the exhibit, Head of a Woman c. 1890-91, is a portrait study which showcases Sommer’s early talent as a draftsman, a skill he learned while studying in Munich with Joseph and Ludwig Hettereich. This technical skill was a crucial foundation of his later mastery of modernism.

A major transition in Sommer’s work can be seen in one of the first paintings he created after arriving in Cleveland, Lakewood in Winter, 1907. The painting reflects the influence of the Ashcan School through its subdued palette and urban realism, revealing the lingering impact of his time in New York. His work then took a dramatic and welcome turn toward Impressionism, shaped by the surge of modern art activity that emerged in Cleveland in this time period, specifically the formation of the Cleveland Secession in 1911, a collective that embraced progressive modernist ideas and of which William Sommer was an active member. In Lake Erie Cliff, Lakewood, 1911, the softened forms, pastel color pallet, and blurred brushwork reveal a true Impressionist work and complete departure from his earlier precision. These paintings also hold personal significance, as Lakewood was where the Sommer family made their home.

Then comes my favorite transformation of all. A large portion of the exhibition is devoted to William Sommer’s Post-Impressionist period, where his work embraces the vivid palette and expressive intensity of Fauvism. If you were placed blindly into this section of the exhibition, you might easily believe you were surrounded by newly discovered paintings by Henri Matisse at the Musée d’Orsay. Sommer’s paintings The Purple Tower and The Japanese Bridge, both created ca. 1913-1914 are true Fauvist masterpieces, demonstrating a bold command of color and composition, along with others from this period highlighted in the exhibition, such as Landscape with Yellow Clouds, c. 1915, on loan courtesy of the Akron Art Museum. His portraits from this period as well, two prominent works being Woman in Pink Blouse c. 1912 and Ray (Portrait of the Artist’s Son), 1914, mirror the Post-Impressionist masters with their bold black outlines of the figures and the brightly decorated backgrounds. Works from this period are some of Sommer’s most exceptional and rightfully place him alongside the celebrated masters of the movement, in both artistic vision and technical achievement.

All the while, as Sommer was quietly creating these masterpieces in his off time, he was lacking inspiration in his professional life at the lithography studio. This inspired him to found the Kokoon Klub in 1911 along with fellow lithographer Carl Moellmann, which was meant to be a gathering place where local artists could paint, exchange ideas, and inspire one another creatively. Specifically, they drew from live nude models in rather rambunctious evening sessions in a rented room which formerly served as a dress maker’s shop. Here he honed his skills as a master draftsman and colorist creating more vibrant and Post Impressionist versions of his early figural studies, which were monochromatic and precise. Miraculously, some of his nude studies from these sessions survived and are included in the exhibition, which was curated masterfully to have a wall dedicated to the Kokoon Klub works. These drawings of sinuous women, devoid of facial features but adorned in colorful gowns, as seen in Three Figures and Dancing Woman, both c. 1915, introduced a new medium to Sommer’s repertoire; here we see Sommer’s early experimentations with watercolor, which he will master in his later years in Brandywine. Along with his own drawings, Sommer served as the Klub’s chief advertiser, creating posters for their exhibitions and annual masked balls which they hosted to raise funds for the group’s artistic pursuits. The posters are works of art in their own right and have become highly collectible pieces of Cleveland School history. These Kokoon Klub masquerades and shenanigans went on to the late 1930s. Of course, Michael Wolf and the curators behind this exhibition included examples of these posters so viewers can immerse themselves in the entire experience. Kokoon Klub Exhibition Poster, c. 1913, and Kokoon Klub, Fifth Annual Bal-Masque Poster, 1917, are the exhibition’s finest examples of William Sommer’s achievements in lithography as a whole.

Soon after his Post-Impressionist and Fauvist pursuits, Sommer’s focus and style took another dramatic shift after he purchased a small home and studio in the countryside of Brandywine, OH in 1914. Here he began experimenting in plein air painting and increasingly incorporating farm animals as central subjects in his work. Now rather than using the Fauvist pinks and Prussian blues in his landscapes, he painted true to nature’s color pallet, in rich browns, greens, yellows, and oranges. The landscape and animalier began in a realistic style then gradually developed into compositions defined by the sharp edges and geometric forms of Cubism. In Brandywine Landscape, 1917, you can see the geometric planes start to materialize before their full Cubist exposure in Cubist Houses, 1923 In Brandywine, Sommer would spend days sketching cows and chickens and enjoying the solitude of nature which he lacked in his previous urban life. Among admirers and collectors, William Sommer’s depictions of cows remain especially iconic; no collection of his work feels complete without at least one drawing or painting of a cow. Martin Lerner’s favorite example of William Sommer’s cow paintings is a late-1940s watercolor study titled Waiting in Bethlehem, included in the exhibition. The work departs from the animals’ traditional farm and barn setting, instead placing them within a more modern architectural landscape.

With his continual experimentation across styles ranging from Impressionism to Cubism, and mediums spanning lithography to watercolor, how do we ultimately define William Sommer as an artist? The answer, quite simply, is he is an American Modernist, who by definition took a decisive departure from traditional academic styles after leaving Germany, and emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and innovative forms of expression. The works in this exhibition reveal William Sommer’s mastery of draftsmanship through charcoal and pencil, his innovative lithography rivaling the celebrated Belle Époque advertising posters of France, his still-life watercolors reminiscent of Pablo Picasso, and his oil paintings, which demonstrate an extraordinary ability to command virtually any artistic movement he explored, from the Ashcan School to Fauvism. One pinnacle work in the exhibition, a large oil painting Fire Worshipers, c. 1921, serves as a compelling example of the artistic direction Sommer ultimately reached in his career. It was commissioned by none other than Dr. Albert Barnes, a Philadelphia pharmaceutical magnate who amassed one of the world’s greatest private collections of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and early Modern art from 1912 to 1951. His enormous collection is now amassed in the impressive Barns Collection in Philadelphia, which is considered the largest world-renowned assemblage of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and early Modern paintings to exist. But alas, Barnes rejected Fire Worshippers on the account that his wife would not like it, and it instead entered an anonymous private collection, and is now finally on exhibition for the first time at Wolf’s Gallery.  But one must ponder that if the Barnes Collection included a work by William Sommer, would it have changed the trajectory of his legacy and catapulted him to a new level of fame and appreciation? I believe it absolutely would have.

This nuance, and several other somewhat minor but influential circumstances led to the neglect of Sommer in the realm of American art history. The most significant factor is that Sommer himself did not attempt to promote or exhibit his work but instead let his oils and works on paper pile up in his studio. Another significant factor is that major exhibitions featuring Cleveland artists were only shown locally and have not traveled to a national audience since 1937, when the Whitney Museum of American Art held the critically acclaimed Paintings and Prints by Cleveland Artists from March 15 to April 16. This complete lack of national exposure surely contributed to Sommer’s neglect. And perhaps the biggest challenge is location. Regional art historians and professionals agree the reason William Sommer remains primarily recognized on a regional rather than national level is basically that Cleveland did not receive the same level of national art-world visibility as New York. And because Sommer spent his life in Northeast Ohio, ultimately passing away in Brandywine in 1949, his art didn’t reach the critics or masses on a larger scale. Even today, there remains a challenge in attracting art writers and specialists to Cleveland to critically engage with local artists and exhibitions. One critic, however, Aline B. Louchheim of the New York Times noted on November 5, 1950, after seeing the Cleveland Museum of Art’s 1950 memorial exhibition of Sommers work, “It is astounding that an artist of the stature of William Sommer should be so little known outside the Cleveland area in which he made his home. For this artist…surely deserves a place high in the roster of American artists.” Most all who know Sommer’s work, agree.

The Cleveland Museum of Art’s 1950 memorial exhibition of William Sommer featured in its advertisement materials a single image: his 1926 subtle and well-painted portrait of Tess, his favorite model and the daughter of a Polish neighbor. Tess holds a prominent place situated on an easel in the middle of the exhibition. The inclusion of the portrait is a testament to the curators’ thoughtful attention to significant historical details in William Sommer’s career which contributed to this remarkably well-rounded and cohesive presentation of his work. The exhibition would not have been possible without the enthusiastic participation of Michael Wolf, the driving force behind the project, who accomplished for William Sommer what local institutions failed to do for decades: place him in the spotlight he rightfully deserves. One can only wish this exhibition could tour the United States so others can be introduced to Sommer’s genius.  

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated publication featuring original essays and scholarship by William H. Robinson, former Curator of Modern European Art and Head of the Department of European and American Painting and Sculpture at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The exhibition will be supported by public programming, including guided tours and lectures. Additional lenders include both public institutions and private collections. Some of the works are for sale.

WILLIAM SOMMER, VISIONARY MODERNIST
Opening Friday, May 8, 5:30-8pm
On view through August 15th at WOLFS (Tuesday-Saturday 11-5pm)
23645 Mercantile Road, Beachwood, Ohio 44122
www.wolfsgallery.com
216.721.6945 | info@wolfsgallery.com