id: 156950
accession number: 1993.11
share license status: Copyrighted
url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1993.11
updated: 2024-03-26 02:00:16.708000
The Eatable Thief, 1950. Frederick Sommer (American, 1905–1999). Gelatin silver print; image: 13.7 x 9.1 cm (5 3/8 x 3 9/16 in.); matted: 30.6 x 35.6 cm (12 1/16 x 14 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Dudley P. Allen Fund 1993.11
title: The Eatable Thief
title in original language:
series:
series in original language:
creation date: 1950
creation date earliest: 1950
creation date latest: 1950
current location:
creditline: Dudley P. Allen Fund
copyright:
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culture: America, 20th century
technique: gelatin silver print
department: Photography
collection: PH - American 1900-1950
type: Photograph
find spot:
catalogue raisonne:
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CREATORS
* Frederick Sommer (American, 1905–1999) - artist
Frederick Sommer American, b. Italy, 1905-1999
"Aesthetics celebrates art as the poetic logic of form," Frederick Sommer has written. This complex ideology runs throughout his work, linking his early black-and-white straight images and his later anatomical collages to a cosmic philosophy informed by myth, art, literature, science, music, and life experience. Sommer's photographs, printed with painstaking attention to focus, contrast, and size, range in subject from straight portraiture to nudes, landscapes, found objects, statues, animal carcasses, peeling walls, and cut-paper sculptures. A friend of surrealist artist Max Ernst, Sommer also explores psychic territory in his art, relying on an emblematic depiction of reality to open the doors of the imagination. Mortal corruptibility, death, and beauty are his universal themes.
Born in Angri, Italy, Sommer grew up in Rio de Janeiro. He earned an M.A. in landscape architecture from Cornell University (1926-27) and married Frances Watson one year later. They returned to Rio, but moved to Switzerland after Sommer was diagnosed with tuberculosis. After his recuperation, they immigrated to the United States in 1931, and Sommer became a naturalized citizen in 1939. Although he painted and occasionally photographed between 1931-35, Sommer's serious efforts at photography began after meeting Alfred Stieglitz in 1935. His first images of the Arizona landscape were made in 1936 with an 8 x 10-inch view camera.
Sommer has lectured extensively on photography and his philosophies, particularly at the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology (1957-58). He also worked as the fine arts coordinator at Prescott College (1966-71). Since 1961 Sommer has concentrated on abstract images and cut-paper collages derived from fragments extracted from medical engravings and anatomical texts. He lives in Prescott, Arizona. A.W.
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measurements: Image: 13.7 x 9.1 cm (5 3/8 x 3 9/16 in.); Matted: 30.6 x 35.6 cm (12 1/16 x 14 in.)
state of the work:
edition of the work: one of eight known prints
support materials:
inscriptions:
inscription: Written in pencil on verso of mount: "The Eatable Thief / Frederick Sommer [signed] 1950"
translation:
remark:
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CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
title: Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art
opening date: 1996-11-24T05:00:00
Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 24, 1996-February 2, 1997).
title: Icons of American Photography: A Century of Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art
opening date: 2007-06-24T00:00:00
Icons of American Photography: A Century of Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 24-September 16, 2007).
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LEGACY EXHIBITIONS
* {'description': 'CMA, September 13 - November 27, 1994: "Recent Acquisitions: Prints, Drawings, Photographs," no exhibition catalogue.', 'opening_date': '1994-09-13T00:00:00'}
* {'description': 'CMA, November 20,1996 - February 2, 1997: "Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art," see Catalogue of Photography, pp. 48-49.', 'opening_date': '1997-02-02T00:00:00'}
* {'description': 'The Cleveland Museum of Art (6/24/07 - 9/16/07); "Icons of American Photography: A Century of Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art", no exhibition catalogue.', 'opening_date': '2007-06-24T00:00:00'}
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PROVENANCE
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fun fact:
digital description:
wall description:
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RELATED WORKS
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CITATIONS
Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996.
page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: P. 48-49, 326
url:
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IMAGES