"In total acceptance, almost everything becomes a revelation."--Frederick Sommer This stunning book—published in the artist’s centenary—chronicles the extraordinary life and work of Frederick Sommer (1905–1999). One of the great masters and key innovators in the history of art photography, Sommer was a complex and highly creative individual. His work in photography is unconventional and fascinating for its wide range of methodologies and techniques. He also explored making images with other media, creating masterful drawings, collages, and musical scores. Arriving in Arizona in 1931, Sommer abandoned his original profession, landscape architecture, and began painting and drawing. After meeting Alfred Stieglitz in 1935 and Edward Weston in 1936, Sommer embraced and quickly mastered photography. Other artists who later proved inspirational to Sommer included Precisionist painter and photographer Charles Sheeler, Surrealist artist Max Ernst, and photographer Aaron Siskind. With an essay by photo historian Keith F. Davis, exquisite reproductions of Sommer’s diverse works, and a detailed chronology of his life by April Watson, The Art of Frederick Sommer describes and documents the full extent of the artist’s achievement as a twentieth-century visionary. The book is a revelation for scholars, artists, students, and everyone who admires and appreciates creative genius. Distributed for the Frederick and Frances Sommer Foundation Exhibition Schedule: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City (May 14 – July 31, 2005) Snite Museum of Art, Notre Dame, Indiana (September 11 - November 27, 2005) The J. Paul Getty Museum (May 10 – September 4, 2005) Frederick Sommer (1905-99), a once-celebrated yet also underrated and misunderstood artist, is overdue for a revival, and this illuminating and sumptuous book will be the catalyst. Raised in Rio de Janeiro, Sommer initially worked with his landscape-designer father, but after he earned his M.A. at Cornell University, he moved to Arizona and pursued many creative channels, including photography, drawing, collage, and painting, all handsomely presented here. Art historian Davis incisively interprets Sommer's innovative and complex art, charting the evolution of his imagination and gift for experimentation, as well as his friendships with Edward Weston, Charles Sheeler, Max Ernst, and Aaron Siskind. Inspired by landscapes, the human figure, and music, Sommer was also profoundly intrigued with the laws of nature, specifically death, decay, and regeneration, which he explored in arresting photographs of animal carcasses merging with the desert and other unusual biological subjects. Heretofore an artist's artist, Sommer deserves greater appreciation for the "mysterious, crystalline precision" of his evocative work, and his uncanny ability to discern beauty in every manifestation and phase of life. Donna Seaman Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "With powerful images and eloquent text, The Art of Frederick Sommer presents the life’s work of our greatest visual poet. This is a book for the ages and a celebration of one hundred years, and it confirms how Sommer’s ideas and sources link him to a profound belief in aesthetics as a way of life. To all who now hold this book in their hands: your life may never be the same. "―Emmet Gowin, Princeton University -- Emmet Gowin This stunning book chronicles the life and work of twentieth-century visionary Frederick Sommer. Among the great masters of art photography, Sommer employed an array of innovative methodologies and techniques to create complex and unconventional images. More than 200 exquisite reproductions of his works affirm the extent of his extraordinary achievement. Keith F. Davis is Hallmark Fine Art Programs director and visiting research professor of art history, University of Missouri, Kansas City. Michael Torosian is proprietor of Lumiere Press, Canada. April M. Watson is research associate and adjunct professor, Department of Art and Art History, University of Missouri, Kansas City.