Frederick Sommer 1905-1999

mounted, matted, 1939

Gift of the photographer to Dr. Ernest Born, circa 1939

Estate of Ernest Born

Acquired by the present owners from the above

Other prints of this image:

Jonathan Williams, 'The Eyes of 3 Phantasts: Laughlin, Sommer, Bullock,' Aperture 9:3, 1961, p. 109

Nancy Hall-Duncan, Photographic Surrealism (Cleveland: The New Gallery of Contemporary Art, 1979), p. 51

John Weiss, ed., Venus, Jupiter & Mars: The Photographs of Frederick Sommer (Wilmington: Delaware Art Museum, 1980, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 19 and exhibition plate list, fig. 1

Mark Haworth-Booth, 'A Goldmine in Arizona,' Creative Camera, December 1981, p. 329

'Elected Affinities, The Frederick Sommer Exhibition,' Image, Volume 33, Nos. 3-4, 1990, p. 47, Fig. 18

Keith F. Davis, The Art of Frederick Sommer: Photography, Drawings, Collage (Prescott and New Haven, 2005), p. 79

Weston Naef, Photographers of Genius at the Getty (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2004), pl. 111

Aperture, No. 169, Winter 2002, p. 71

Frederick Sommer: The Box (Tucson and Munich, 1994), unpaginated

This early print, on paper with a surface sheen and mounted on beige board, is in generally excellent condition. Slight silvering is evident at periphery of the print. The edges are slightly rubbed, and there is a tiny nick, as well as a tiny piece of emulsion lifting, at the upper left edge. When examined in high raking light several small deposits of original retouching are visible, as well as some very faint, barely noticeable surface scratches and light scuffing. There is light age-darkening at the edges of the mount, some small deposits (two droplet-like) of indeterminate nature and minor soiling on the front and back of the mount. There are three strips of adhesive remains from cloth tape at the top edge of the mount on the front and one on the reverse of the mount. None of these issues detract from the otherwise very attractive appearance of this early print.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

According to the Frederick Sommer Foundation, the photograph offered here is the earliest known print of Amputated Foot extant. The Foundation records 4 later prints of this image in institutional collections: the George Eastman House; the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard; Princeton University Art Museum; and the J. Paul Getty Museum; as well as 9 later prints in private collections.  

In December of 1937, Sommer purchased an 8-by-10-inch format Century Universal View camera and a Zeiss Tassar lens which allowed him to photograph objects in extreme close-up and in great detail.  The acquisition of this new equipment led to the collagistic still life studies that would become a significant component of his oeuvre.  Some of the earliest work in this vein is the unprecedented series of images of chicken parts Sommer began in 1938. 

Sommer's physician and friend in Prescott, Arizona, Dr. Ernest Born, who was also an amateur photographer, was aware of Sommer's interests during this period.  In an interview with Michael Torosian in 1991, Sommer described how he acquired the subject of the present picture:

'I was friendly with a doctor . . . who was himself a photographer . . . I showed him some of these chicken pictures.  He was delighted and said "When I have something really worth photographing, something unusual, I'll bring it around."  One night there was a knock at the door and he brought in a human leg that he had amputated just a half hour before.  Sometime a while after that he brought a placenta.  Those were about the best things. They were very complex shapes, very handsome shapes' (quoted in Art of Frederick Sommer, p. 211).  

The foot in the present photograph had belonged to a drunken hobo who had passed out riding the rails near Ashford, Arizona.  Amputated Foot was published in a controversial issue of Aperture (Volume 9, Number 3) in 1961, in a portfolio of photographs edited and introduced by Jonathan Williams.  Entitled 'The Eyes of 3 Phantasts,' the portfolio reproduced images by Clarence John Laughlin, Frederick Sommer, and Wynn Bullock.  In his accompanying text, Williams wrote:

'And yet, the photographs are "horrible". . . . [Sommer] can ask a doctor friend what he's carrying in the bloody newspaper, insist on taking the amputated foot (from a hobo's accident on the Santa Fe tracks) back to the darkroom, and then produce a photograph . . . which is so accurate that it turns "the real" into a veritable jungle out of Hieronymous Bosch and Max Ernst.  The use of the eye, seeing everything in the object, rejects the anticipated revulsion . . . I think Mr. Henry James has finally met his master -- an objectivity of an order that seems almost galactic' (p. 110). 

The article, and Amputated Foot in particular, provoked strong letters to the editor of the magazine, which were published in subsequent issues.  In the intervening years, this masterfully graphic image has lost none of its initial impact.

This photograph was acquired by Dr. Born directly from Sommer around the time of its making.  It remained in Dr. Born's collection until his death in 1980.  It was subsequently acquired from Dr. Born's widow by a friend of the doctor's, the young photographer Jon Gipe.  Two Frederick Sommer photographs originally from the collection of Dr. Born, including the above-mentioned Placenta, were sold in these rooms on 11 October 2005 (Sale 8115, Lots 137 and 139).