Frederick Sommer

Gift of the photographer to Jonathan Williams, circa 1964

Peter MacGill Company, New York, 1983

Collection of John and Lou Glasse, Poughkeepsie, 1979

By descent to the present owner

Frederick Sommer, 'Frederick Sommer: 1939-1962 Photographs,' Aperture 10:4, January 1962, unpaginated

Leland Rice, Constance Glenn, and Jane K. Bledsoe, Frederick Sommer at Seventy-Five: A Retrospective (Long Beach, 1980), p. 17

John Weiss, Venus, Jupiter & Mars: The Photographs of Frederick Sommer (Wilmington, 1980), pl. 1

Sommer: Words (Tucson, 1984), no. 1

Keith Davis, The Art of Frederick Sommer: Photography, Drawing, Collage (New Haven, 2005), p. 149

This photograph comes originally from the collection of John Glasse (1922-2014), a Professor of Religion at Vassar College from 1956 to 1990. An accomplished photographer himself, Glasse began collecting photographs in earnest in the 1970s, frequenting early New York galleries like LIGHT Gallery and Witkin Gallery. He focused on 20th century photographers such as Imogen Cunningham (Lot 112), Alfred Stieglitz (Lot 53), Ansel Adams ( Lot 22), Frederick Sommer (Lots 148 and 149) and Paul Strand (Lots 111, 147, and 150). Professor Glasse curated an exhibition of Paul Strand photographs at the Vassar College Art Gallery in 1977 and organized a symposium in honor of Frederick Sommer’s 75th birthday in 1985.