Frederick Sommer, a polymath born on September 7, 1905 in Italy and raised in Brazil, was a well-known American photographer. He earned an MA degree in landscape architecture from Cornell University before being diagnosed with tuberculosis and moving to the United States permanently. Sommer married Frances Watson in 1928 but did not have children.
Sommer’s immense creativity knew no bounds, as he had interests across various disciplines like photography, drawing, painting, collage-making, poetry writing and prose composition. His expertise helped him create unique images of desert landscapes that were compared to those of Ansel Adams’. His ability to push the boundaries of conventional photographic subject matter by creating abstract compositions with fabricated objects for the camera made him stand out among his contemporaries. Sommer’s contribution to art and photography was recognized when his work was collected by New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1941.
In conclusion, Frederick Sommer was a multi-talented artist who left an indelible mark on the world of photography with his innovative ideas and creative concepts. The uniqueness of his photographs lies in its surrealistic style which challenged popular norms at that time. Even after decades since his death on January 23rd ,1999 ,his artworks continue to inspire artists around the world because they reflect not only Sommer’s imagination but also the possibilities offered by artistic self-expression.